SEA marking cruel, unkind, unjust

THE EDITOR: I wish to voice my concern with regard to the marking of the ELA Writing scripts for the SEA examination, 2019.

Before I do so, let me make it abundantly clear that I have no issue with the curriculum which I believe is well within the reach of the average child. Teachers and students had two years to adequately prepare for this examination.

The examination was a very good paper which required students to engage their higher order thinking and comprehension skills which are part of any examination. Parents and teachers complained bitterly about the Mathematics paper. Our top score in that paper is 98.7% and we had several students scoring above 90 %.

The Ministry of Education had hosted workshops over a period of time and posted samples of children’s work which were meant to guide the teachers to ensure that students were well prepared. A rubric was also given as a guide to the marking of the children’s writing.

What happened with the marking of the actual examination was nothing short of a disaster and many parents and teachers are still in a quandary as to what transpired.

Teachers who assisted in marking the papers have discussed with their colleagues the unfairness and injustice of what took place. In the first instance, the rubric we teachers were asked to use was not the one used for marking the examination. This was done, I was informed, for expediency.

It is my understanding as well, that students were penalised twice for the same spelling error. The system used to assess the children’s work was not one of reward for skills understood and utilised, but one of punishment.

I have compared my children’s writing with samples handed out by the Ministry of Education, to teachers and on the website, and I must say very confidently that our writing compares very favourably with what I saw. Other schools have made the same observation so we are at a loss to know what happened. This is injustice. It is cruel. It is unkind.

Those who sit behind a desk and make decisions sometimes never understand how their decisions affect children because they have never worked in a classroom. You destroy a child’s morale by unfairly marking him or her. You frustrate not only the teachers but moreso the children who, after working for two years in preparation for the examination, were not assessed accurately.

I know many parents have formed action groups and are requesting a remarking of their children’s scripts. They are within their right to do so. Someone must explain what happened this year. The Ministry of Education or CXC may not want to reveal now the huge discrepancy that took place for it will prove to be a national disaster, but even if nothing comes out of parents’ requests, we must continue to make our voices heard in order to prevent another calamity such as this. Parents, the choice is yours.

Lynette Lalla-Chote

Principal

Specialist Learning Centre