RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In an un­prece­dent­ed move, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has de­cid­ed not to in­clude the per­centile rank­ing in the stu­dent per­for­mance re­ports for the 2023 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tions. 

This de­ci­sion has raised con­cerns among par­ents, who ar­gue that the ab­sence of per­centile rank­ings makes it dif­fi­cult for them to as­sess their child’s per­for­mance in com­par­i­son to the na­tion­al av­er­age.

Ex­press­ing her dis­may, one par­ent told Guardian Me­dia, “If we do not know the per­centile, how will we know the rank­ing of the stu­dent on a na­tion­al lev­el?” 

She added: “I in­tend to re­quest this in­for­ma­tion un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act. It is im­por­tant to have ac­cess to this in­for­ma­tion and the min­istry should ex­plain why it is dis­al­lowed,” she added.

Re­spond­ing to the con­fu­sion sur­round­ing the is­sue, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly clar­i­fied the ra­tio­nale be­hind the re­moval of per­centiles from the per­for­mance re­ports.

“The per­centile caused a great deal of con­fu­sion among par­ents and stu­dents, re­gard­less of the ex­pla­na­tions avail­able. That’s why it was re­moved,” she ex­plained.

Re­gard­ing con­cerns about na­tion­al place­ment, Gads­by-Dol­ly as­sured there was noth­ing to wor­ry about.

She said any par­ent re­quir­ing this in­for­ma­tion can re­quest it.

“It is not that the in­for­ma­tion is not avail­able,” she said, not­ing: “Stu­dent rank­ing would still be avail­able up­on re­quest af­ter the com­ple­tion of re­views. 

The min­is­ter em­pha­sised that the da­ta was not with­held in­ten­tion­al­ly, but rather the de­ci­sion was made to ad­dress the pre­vail­ing con­fu­sion.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, Mar­tin Lum Kin, pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, ac­knowl­edged the im­por­tance of trans­paren­cy and stu­dents’ ac­cess to their per­centile marks.

“TTUTA takes note of the ex­pla­na­tion giv­en by the min­is­ter con­cern­ing the ex­clu­sion of per­centile on the re­sults slip. TTUTA agrees it is dif­fi­cult to in­ter­pret the per­centile. How­ev­er, we feel our par­ents and the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion should be prop­er­ly af­ford­ed an ex­pla­na­tion for the per­centile,” he said.

Lum Kin ac­knowl­edged the dif­fi­cul­ties in in­ter­pret­ing the per­centile even at the school lev­el.

“Pro­vid­ing per­centiles da­ta up­on re­quest would pro­mote trans­paren­cy and deal with the chal­lenges as­so­ci­at­ed with un­der­stand­ing per­centiles,” he said.

Last year, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion faced crit­i­cism from de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards when it ceased the pub­lic an­nounce­ment of top-rank­ing schools and SEA per­for­mances due to con­cerns about “un­healthy com­pet­i­tive­ness.”

Gadsy-Dol­ly ex­plained that the ini­tial pur­pose of pub­lic an­nounce­ments was to cel­e­brate the achieve­ments of young schol­ars na­tion­wide.

How­ev­er, the prac­tice had de­volved in­to a harm­ful com­pe­ti­tion be­tween schools, plac­ing un­due pres­sure on stu­dents.

Since then, pupils and their par­ents have re­sort­ed to re­quest­ing their fi­nal rank through the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act. This change sought to al­le­vi­ate the neg­a­tive con­se­quences of pub­lic an­nounce­ments while still pro­vid­ing nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion to in­ter­est­ed par­ties.