ERRORS IN SEA

Speaking at a press conference at the Ministry’s Port-of-Spain office, Minister Garcia placed the blame squarely on the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), which is based in Barbados and which is tasked with overseeing all major national exams in the Caribbean including SEA, CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate) and CAPE (Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Exam).

Chief Education Officer Harrilal Seecharan told reporters that based on reports from monitors who visited schools, the ministry was informed that there were two issues identified in the exam.

“In the maths paper we had one question where the dimension of a triangle was switched. In looking at the question, we found it would not have made a difference in which way the student utilised the dimensions.” He continued, “In the language arts paper there were two questions which required words to be underlined, to facilitate a response from students. The lines were left out and that would have impacted on how they responded.

Now these items in the exam will be dealt with by a standard procedure utilised by CXC,” Seecharan said.

“After questions are reviewed and analysed, there is a final process which moves the test itself to production and it appears within that process those errors took place,” he explained adding that no one at the ministry sees the final version of the test and were only aware of these issues when the papers were opened at schools yesterday.

Seecharan indicated that CXC officials will be in the country today to take possession of the papers and the issue will be discussed. “I want to assure the public especially students and their parents that those concerns raised with us through our monitors will be addressed and they can be reassured that no student will be put at a disadvantage.

The three questions will be removed from the exercise. The two in the Language Arts paper were one mark item and the other in the Mathematics was a two mark item.” Seecharan said once the three items are dealt with, there were no other issues to treat with the exam. “Lets say the test was originally designed to be marked out of 100, and if we take out two marks, it means 98. But it does not mean the student will now get 98 percent.

Once we use standard scores, the overall score of the student will not be affected. In other words it will still be treated as if they are marked out of 100 per cent.” Seecharan said standard scores are used to place students, and whether the exam is marked out of 50, 60 or 98 it will not make a difference because the marks are converted to a standard score and will not impact on students overall score.

Minister Garcia said as far as the ministry is concerned the administrative aspect of the exam went very smoothly. “There were no hiccups in terms of the physical accommodations, no hiccups in terms of supervision, the testers and assistant testers, supervisors, center managers all went well. The seating accommodation for our students also went well and the concessions that we gave to students who were in need of assistance, was also seen to,” Garcia said.

Efforts to contact officials of both the National Primary Schools Principals Association and the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) on several attempts, all calls went unanswered.

Several parents contacted Newsday to complain that students may have been affected by spending time on these questions which will not not be marked when they could have spent that time on other questions in the exam.