Release of NGSA results was not delayed - CEO

Release of NGSA results was not delayed – CEO

Jul 08, 2016 News

Chief Education Officer, Mr. Olato Sam.

Speculation has surfaced about what could have led to a possible delay in the completion of the marking of the 2016 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA). Some reports that have reached this publication suggest that after an initial marking process was completed, the Ministry decided to redo the process, since an unprecedented number of children gained scores that reportedly did not permit them to ascend to senior secondary schools.
This state of affairs has, however, been dispelled by the Ministry of Education.
The Ministry, according to Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, is still analysing the results.
The highest possible general score that was obtainable this year was 583. The best performers at the national assessment scored a mere 15 marks shy of the possible highest obtainable score. They are Anthony Ferreira and Aryan Singh both of whom secured a score of 568. They are both eligible to attend Queen’s College (QC).
The Ministry has detailed that the cut-off score to attend the country’s sixth form schools this year are: 541 – QC, 531 – The Bishops’ High School, 522 – St. Stanislaus College, 516 – St. Rose’s High, 508 – St. Joseph High and 493 – President’s College.
The highest possible standardized scores obtainable for the respective subjects this year were: Mathematics – 162, English – 138, Social Studies – 134 and Science – 149. A total of 14,386 candidates were assessed in the subject areas.
Superintendent of Examinations, Ms. Sauda Kadir, made it clear that “we did not have any major difficulties.” Guyana for the first time this year collaborated with the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) to undertake the marking of the NGSA. Kadir explained that after a process of verification was completed, the final results were produced.
But, according to her, the Ministry did not rely solely on the support of CXC, since “we did our own verification.”
Given the workable support that was gained from CXC, Kadir anticipates that the Ministry will be seeking to sustain the collaboration, at least for a few more years, during which all necessary measures will be put in place for it to operate independently.
When questioned about a delay in releasing the results, Chief Education Officer, Mr. Olato Sam, argued that there was really no delay.
“Actually if you check the time, it was consistent with past years…the only difference this year is that we wrote the assessment three weeks later than the average and we took the same amount of time, about eight weeks,” Sam explained.
The 2016 NGSA was written on April 27 and 28, 2016, and was released to the public via a televised broadcast on Tuesday.
Sam related that while electronic marking was incorporated this year, it was only used for one dimension of the marking – Paper One. He however pointed out that this was not possible for Paper Two, as “this is the paper that they (candidates) write their essays, and so that can’t be marked electronically.”
But according to Sam, the efficiency that has been gained from the electronic marking has been noted and “we are actually going to employ some of those techniques…”
The CEO nevertheless disclosed that the time in relation to verification and all of the other checks and balances that are required, is something that the Ministry intends to retain.
“This is something we want to preserve, so that we are sure that we get the best and most reliable results at the end of this experience,” Sam asserted.

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