Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh has revealed that the Caribbean Examinations Council has removed its existing logo from the Web site and is now moving to restrict interaction on its grade accessing portals, after reports of CXC grade tampering on-line. Speaking with reporters during a tour of the Tabaquite constituency yesterday, Gopeesingh said he first became aware of the issue on Thursday evening and he immediately contacted CXC's chief executive officer and registrar, Dr Didacus Jules, who was in London. "I spoke with Dr Jules and he said that he had reports that students were tampering with grades on-line and he had to remove the logo from CXC so that any student who attempts to print the on-line grades as one of official transcripts will be found in breach," the minister said.
"I want to remind students that doing this is a criminal and fraudulent activity. "The transcripts that we are giving to all schools from CXC are the ones that have been sent by CXC to us. "We are giving these transcripts to school supervisors and principals and that is the official transcript." Gopeesingh warned that "any student who attempts to prepare transcripts that are different from the real results will be liable to face penalties for fraud." He could not say, however, what the penalties were. "I think I have to be guided by the legal team about the penalty... They will probably have to advise me of this," the minister said.
"Students could be found guilty of a criminal offence so we are warning them of this. "CXC will also look at the possibility of the need to re-examine the results and not to be able to have interactive processes through the Internet to view these results." Asked whether the on-line grade tampering had occurred only in T&T, Gopeesingh said no. "I believe it has happening in one or two other countries as well," he added. "They immediately contacted the Supervisor of Securities for CXC examination and they have been working on it. "They were not willing to say how much of these students did it. "It is difficult to do it, but in future Dr Jules said it will be monitored."
Jules, a St Lucia national, was appointed registrar of CXC in April 2008 and was involved in the setting up of on-line results, for the first time in history, this year. Students wishing to view their results were asked to enter their ten digit registration number, last name and date of birth to access their results from the portal http://ors.cxc.org//studentportal
CXC local registrars and principals of schools were given the privilege to restrict access to the results from some schools and candidates if they deemed it necessary for compliance reasons. CXC also made broadsheets, centre statistics and merit lists available to school principals via the on-line registration system.