SBA discrepancies warrant no investigation

EDUCATION Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said there will be no investigation into this year’s School Based Assessment (SBA) submissions for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), even as Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) noted fraudulent submissions.

Her comments came after a report by an Independent Review Committee (IRC) was released earlier this week by the Barbados-based CXC which cited discrepancies such as fraudulent SBAs from teachers and leaked examination questions.

The IRC which was chaired by Professor Emerita Hazel Simmons-McDonald, said that there was enough evidence of discrepancies to justify a full remarking of the papers. Gadsby-Dolly did not respond to this observation and conclusion but said TT will not be investigating the matter further.

She said, “No investigation is planned into determining whether teachers or students submitted “fraudulent” SBAs in 2020. “The CXC was clear that every country had schools with low correlation between SBA grades of moderators and teachers. This would have been the result of a few factors.”

Gadsby-Dolly added that at this time the ministry is concerned with getting the reviews of the results done on time and the IRC’s recommendations implemented.

“The focus of the ministry at this time is to ensure that the reviews are completed and the recommendations of the review team, which were very specific and sweeping, and spoke to the many facets of this issue, including the standard of SBAs submitted, the training of teachers and students, the security of paper one examination scripts etcetera are implemented.

“The council was asked today (Friday) to vote on the recommendation made in Monday’s ministers of education meeting on the waiver of review fees for CXC examinations. We await the outcome, though TT has made the decision to foot the bill for our nationals if necessary,” she explained.

Gadsby-Dolly further stated that CXC did not issue a list of countries with fraudulent SBAs and that it was a general reference across the region where moderators and teachers grades differed, with various reasons for same, including, but not limited to, inflated grades and inconsistencies.

The report examined the modified approach to this year’s examinations, in light of the covid19 pandemic which affected the normal delivery of the examinations across the Caribbean.

The report looked at the change of SBA grades and an adjusted grading model, among other issues. It also made 23 recommendations for CXC’s operations in the short, medium and long term. The IRC was commissioned by CXC chairman and University of the West Indies Vice-Chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles.

Other members included retired chief education officer Harrilal Seecharan; Minister of Education in Antigua and Barbuda Michael Browne; president of the University of Curacao Francis De Lanoy and Professor Emeritus at University of the West Indies Andrew Downes. Newsday attempted to contact Seecharan on the matter on Friday but calls to his phone went to voice mail.