Several students who sat the 2014 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations are now frustrated because their grade slips are being withheld by their schools and access to their grades online has also has been blocked.
The Ministry of Education in a release on Wednesday stated that the difficulties in accessing results from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) website may be because school materials are yet to be returned to the respective schools.
The Ministry noted that it had previously asked all students to return materials loaned by schools, failing which access to results would be denied. It said the request is in keeping with its textbook policy, which states: “Learners must return books before Progress Reports, Examination Results, Recommendations, or References are uplifted.”
“The Ministry has been forced to adopt this unfortunate position to give the same opportunities to the incoming batch of students as were afforded to the students now requesting their results,” it added in the release.
Notices of this policy were placed in the media between June 18th and June 20th 2014, on the Ministry’s website and social media on June 13th, June 18th and July 28th.
The Ministry further stated that head teachers were asked to submit lists of students who had returned all items and that access has been granted to places where those lists have been submitted. The release also mentioned that head teachers who failed to submit those lists or respond by August 8th would be disciplined. The release also urged students to return all outstanding school materials so that online access to CSEC results could be granted.
A Business School student who spoke with Stabroek News said that only some schools inclusive of Queen’s College and Mae’s Secondary School are able to access their results online, while the remaining schools, including hers, are unable to. She said, “Well since last night we tried logging, we didn’t get through… after trying for hours. This morning my dad called our school, [which] said that they restricted the students from the website; that it’s due to not returning textbooks and payments.” This, she added, was so that students would be prompted to go in to the school to get their grades. She noted that grade slips were not available and students were just being told how they performed.
Queen’s College and Mae’s Secondary School students confirmed that they were able to obtain their results successfully online.
Another student took to Facebook and said that he called the Ministry of Education and was told that the hard copy of the results will be made available to Guyana by today.
Some students said that it is very frustrating to have to deal with the inadequate access, including those who are overseas on vacation but are anxious to know how they performed. Others feel slighted, saying that certain schools have been allowed to verify their results online, while theirs have not been.
Local CSEC results were made public on August 11th, when the top performers were announced, but grade slips are yet to be issued, according to most students who spoke with this newspaper.
