Irregularities during the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) conducted earlier this year have been detected, prompting an investigation by the Ministry of Education.
The Ministry in a statement issued yesterday acknowledged the development and has even pointed proverbial fingers to a particular school in Region One.
Although the situation, it was noted, has affected the integrity of that school’s NGSA results the Ministry is adamant that it will not impact the general integrity or the timely release of the national results since there were no other detected instances of irregularities at the other schools.
The Ministry has however not been forthcoming in detailing the extent of the irregularities but has committed to making public its findings at the end of its investigation.
According to the statement “the Ministry is actively considering various options and will make interventions where its paramount consideration will be what is in the best interest of the affected pupils.”
In recent years, the Ministry of Education has established a number of quality assurance mechanisms to ensure that examinations and their subsequent results are of the highest integrity. In fact, it was these measures that allowed for the identification of the irregularities, the Ministry boasted in its statement.
The NGSA results, according to the Ministry, are slated for a June 27, 2014, unveiling in keeping with a promise that was made by Education Minister, Priya Manickchand.
The Ministry in an earlier statement said that “with a view of streamlining the efficient delivery of results, this year the pupils, parents and school administrations knew the date by which the results would be out (even) before the commencement of the NGSA.”
The NGSA was conducted on April 16 and 17, last, at centres across Guyana with just over 15,000 candidates participating. They were assessed in the four subject areas of English Language, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies, each of which consisted of two papers.
The Ministry had earlier this month disclosed that it had completed marking the 2014 NGSA papers, and scripts were being processed nationally.
The unveiling of the examination last year was arguably the earliest the results were unveiled. The NGSA results were unveiled on June 7, 2013, with Salma Majeed of the ISA Islamic Academy being the top performing candidate. She scored 548 points out of a possible 560.
The planned release of the 2014 NGSA results, according to the Ministry, represents the second consecutive year that it will fulfil a promise to make an early announcement. This was attributed to the continued enhancement of the overall quality management processes of the examination.
Source:https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2014/05/31/investigation-launches-into-ngsa-irregularities-at-region-one-school/