Pupils of the Region One School where irregularities were detected following the April sitting of the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) will be required to re-sit the entire examination. This disclosure was made by Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, during a press conference on Thursday to announce the national 2014 NGSA results.
According to Manickchand, another examination has already been prepared for the affected pupils, that will be administered on July 2 and 3. “We had to give them reasonable time to prepare,” said the Minister.
The Ministry during the latter part of last month had opened-up about the fraudulent development, revealing that it had commenced an investigation. The ongoing investigation, according to the Minister, is being done with a view of ensuring that “we minimise the likelihood of this happening again as well as determining what really happened.”
Although Ministry officials have refused to name the school under the microscope so as to protect the affected pupils from being stigmatised, Manickchand did assure that “we will keep you updated as we get information.”
According to the Minister too “the irregularities we found would have, in our professional opinion, affected the integrity of the results of those pupils.” Moreover, it was noted that it was in the best interest of the pupils, she said, that moves were made to ensure that another exam was prepared.
The Ministry had earlier expressed concern about the situation, but asserted that the development was not one that would have impacted the general integrity or the timely release of the national results since there were no other detected instances of irregularities at the other schools.
It was even disclosed by the Ministry that efforts were being made to “actively consider 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 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 the Ministry has said that allowed for the identification of the irregularities.
Meanwhile, Superintendent of Examinations, Sauda Kadir, revealed Thursday that the pupils of the Academy of Excellence, who were involved in an accident on their way to participate in the second day of the NGSA will not have to re-sit the exam.
The accident saw about four pupils of the Cornelia Ida, West Coast Demerara, school being hospitalised, thus they were unable to complete the second day of the official examination in April.
According to Kadir, since these students will not be required to re-sit the exam, they will instead be assessed through “other statistical methods” which will be employed to award them placement at secondary level schools.
The official release of the 2014 examination on Thursday saw Jason De Santos of the New Guyana School being identified as the country’s top performer with his 533 score out of a possible 540.
The release of the results represent the second consecutive year that the results were made available in early June which the Ministry has attributed to the continued enhancement of the overall quality management process of the examination.
Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2014/06/14/ngsa-irregularities-at-region-one-school-affected-pupils-to-sit-fresh-examination-next-month/