Devon Dick

Recently, I heard an interview on RJR's 'Beyond the Headlines' concerning the judgment handed down against the Ministry of Education (MOE) by Justice Brian Sykes. André Earle of Patterson, Rattray, Patterson, representing the claimant, and Jackie Foster Pusey representing the MOE, spoke. Foster Pusey graciously conceded and if memory serves me right, her client was not challenging that some injustices were meted out but that the sticking point was the issue of compensation.

The actions of the MOE were very strange. A student was denied the opportunity of obtaining the top Scotia Scholarship because it was claimed that her scores were the result of the 2007 GSAT examination papers being 'leaked' to her extra lessons centre. Nevertheless, she was allowed to be placed in a top school based on those same suspected grades. To be consistent, if it was felt that she benefited unfairly and was disqualified from receiving the scholarship, then the student should not have been awarded a place based on those scores. To compound the matter, she was the only student who was punished, although it was claimed that many students benefited from leaked documents.

Furthermore, one would have expected that it would be the centre management that would be punished for providing a leaked document to unknowing students and the worst case scenario for a student who was the unwitting beneficiary of a fraud would be to ask the students to re-sit the examination. In any case, there does not appear to be any fraud because the grades received by the student in question were not dissimilar to grades she was getting previously.

No natural justice

And it gets worse. There was no natural justice. The Ministry of Education did not inform the student or parent that she was disqualified because of perceived breaches.

How should this be resolved? The student should be awarded, at a specially organised ceremony, a 2007 Scotia scholarship to be funded by The Ministry of Education. In addition, the person or persons who made the decision to deny this child this scholarship are guilty of an injustice, and though they will not be required to pay any cost out of their pockets, should publicly apologise to the student and parent(s).

Unfortunate regulations

No one knows how this child could be made to suffer because of this allegation. Another child wanting to be naughty might even, in jest, call the child in question a cheat. This allegation should have been handled with more sensitivity, seriousness and thoroughness.

The GSAT has some unfortunate regulations which, I have previously pointed out, can deny legitimate students a scholarship. It has to do with the weighting of subjects. It is possible for student A to get 100 per cent in mathematics, 100 per cent in language arts, 100 per cent in social studies, 100 per cent in science and 11 out of 12 in communication tasks and not get a scholarship because student X, who got 98 per cent in mathematics, 98 per cent in language arts, 98 per cent in social studies, 99 per cent in science and 12 out of 12 in communication tasks, is considered to have done better than student A.

Strange weighting

This is a strange weighting of communication tasks, the examination which lasts 50 minutes while others last 75 minutes each. I have spoken to a Ministry of Education official and a previous minister of education, but no change. This way of interpreting results has denied deserving students in previous years a scholarship.

GSAT, as it is structured and operates is causing innocent children to suffer.