Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh says the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) standardised score was the important factor used to determine the placement of Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) pupils attend after writing the exam.
He was speaking at yesterday's post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair.
Gopeesingh said the results of this year's SEA were the best ever in T&T's history.
Responding to questions on the issue of the placement of students, Gopeesingh said on the report given to the students there were a raw mark, a standardised score and a percentage given by CXC.
"Based on the raw mark CXC calculates and that is the one used (in determining which school the pupil is placed)," he added.
Parents have been complaining their children received high percentage marks but others with a lower percentage marks were selected for so-called better schools.
He said the maximum standardised score would be 245 and the pupil who placed first scored 243.
He said in the top 200 SEA pupils for 2015 the pupil who placed at number 200 got about 238 marks.
"The top performing schools will be selecting students from those and when they have selected their 80 per cent (requirement) ... then they look to see which students have been asked to go to which school."
Gopeesingh added: "If a student has put a particular school for first choice and that student does not satisfy the mark for that choice, then the student is compared for the second choice, based on his/her marks."
He insisted that the percentage mark was not what was used to determine which school in which the student was placed.
Questioned about the formula used by CXC to standardise the marks, Gopeesingh said: "It is a real mathematical process. It is difficult to understand but CXC has made it into a very discernable process.
"If you were giving the raw marks, 98,97 or 96 (for example), and you were not using the standardised scores which they (CXC) calculate, you would not have been able to separate the students."
Gopeesingh said: "Sometimes .1 or .01 separates a student from another."
He then said the student who placed first in this year's exam "received 243.798 and the student who came second, 243.243 and the student who came third, 242.715."
He said all the students did well in this year's exam with nine out of every ten getting more than 50 per cent and eight out of ten getting more than 60 per cent.
He said the first 3,000 students were separated by just a few marks.
Ready to dealwith complaints
The minister said he was not sure of the basis of their complaints but "we will have to examine it and the ministry stands ready to listen to what problems may emanate."
Gopeesingh said parents with such concerns should "visit the schools and then we will get the school supervisors involved and they (supervisors) will bring that information to the ministry and we will get the Examinations Committee to examine it."
He said the ministry "must look into the complaint of every child or parent."
According to Gopeesingh, it was expected that parents would want their children to attend the 52 schools which have been obtaining national scholarships annually.
He said the ministry was trying to close the performance gap between the Government's secondary schools and the denominational schools.
He said if that was adequately addressed there may be no need for the SEA. However, he insisted that could only be considered "when we bring all secondary schools to a level of competence as we have with a lot of the board schools."
Gopeesingh said the significantly improved performances by students in the SEA were the result of several new initiatives implemented by the Government since it assumed office just over five years ago and other measures.
Gopeesingh also announced that the national test for pupils in Standards One, Two, Three and Four "will be a thing of the past, with it being held for one year, possibly in Standard Two."
The test was used to "tell the performance of the schools, the performance of the teachers and to identify the weaker students who we want to help."
He also revealed that only 26 SEA students are to repeat the exam next year.
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Gopeesingh said 18,310 students wrote the examination in May.
�2 Some 9,003 were girls and 9,307 boys.
�2 Students scoring above 90 per cent: 14.1 per cent, an increase of more than six per cent for 2009.
�2 Students scoring above 60 per cent: 79.1 per cent, an increase of about 25 per cent increase for 2009.
�2 Students scoring more than 50 per cent: 91 per cent, an increase of 23 per cent from 2009.
�2 Students scoring less than 30 per cent: 1.1 per cent and 11.2 per cent in 2009.