(Trinidad Express) Sabotage!
This is how the Ministry of Education yesterday described the purported leak of Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) Examination results that were published on the controversial website WikiLeaks.
Reacting to the “leak” yesterday, the Ministry of Education issued a press release stating that “preliminary investigations have revealed that there appears to be a determined, sinister plot to destabilise the positive work emanating from the Ministry of Education”.
Callers to the Express newsroom said they had received results online as early as 10 a.m. yesterday.
One caller said her granddaughter, who attended Tunapuna Government Primary School, was placed at Bishop’s Anstey High School.
Back in May, 17,916 pupils sat the SEA exam.
Commenting on the issue during a telephone interview, acting Chief Education Officer Harrilal Seecharan said there were no leaks, but denominational schools under the 1960 Concordat had the authority to select 20 per cent of the First Form pupils to attend their schools.
The principals of these schools would have an idea of the children who would attend their schools prior to the results being made public. He added that this may have been misinterpreted as a leak.
“There is no leak. In fact, I have just come from the placement centre. We are still in the process of packaging material, so that I can assure you that no results have been leaked to anybody. All the officers that have been involved in the process have sworn an oath of secrecy and I can tell you at this point that no official results have been sent from the Ministry to any school, any child or any parent,” Seecharan said in a telephone interview with i95.5 FM.
In the release yesterday, the Ministry stated that “there are agents inside and outside of the Ministry, intent and determined to create instability, confusion and chaos in the minds of the population as well as the students, parents and teachers of our nation”.
The release said that following the move of the SEA exam from March to May, the Ministry promised results would be released on or before July 6 and remained committed to release the results today.
“Meanwhile, active investigations are being pursued to determine those responsible for this act of sabotage and for possible prosecution of criminal conduct. The Ministry of Education continues to be committed to the highest standards of transparency and accountability to the nation.
“The Ministry is well aware of these insidious acts being committed over the past few weeks with the same nefarious intent and purpose. The Ministry of Education advises the public to ignore any such e-mail or information, as their contents may be false or inaccurate,” the release read.
According to sources responsible for correcting the SEA exams, papers were marked at the Aranjuez Secondary School, for approximately four days, a week after the exam was written on May 10.
The papers, which were corrected by teachers from Trinidad and Tobago as well as other Caribbean countries, were then flown to Barbados to a section of the Caribbean Examinations Council called the measurement and evaluation unit, where they were marked and graded before being flown back to the country to be tabulated and then made available for online viewing.
