The Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) has apologised for the frustration suffered by one of its students who complained that the final exam for one of its courses was never administered.
“Negative experiences can overwhelm students, and we want to assure all our awardees that we take such matters seriously. We regret that our GOAL awardee was not provided the necessary assistance. We apologise for this lapse”, GOAL said in a statement issued through the Department of Public Information following a request by Stabroek News for a comment on the complaint by the student in a letter in the May 28 Sunday Stabroek.
GOAL said that it has initiated an investigation into the matter and will take appropriate action, including the facilitation of students who are qualified to write the General Educational Development (GED) examinations – the course complained about – in the shortest possible time.
GOAL said that it emphasises to its local and international partners the importance of keeping awardees informed of any new changes in an institution’s procedures and policies in a respectful and timely manner.
In addition, it reminded all awardees that GOAL’s Programme Managers are always willing to assist those experiencing difficulties with their respective institutions. They serve as a vital link between its partners and awardees and play a crucial role in “resolving issues efficiently and effectively”.
GOAL said that Programme Managers can be contacted at the following numbers: +592-506-5552, 222-5391, 222-5395, or 643-7783.
The student had written in the May 28 letter that the GED programme had been advertised as a hope for Guyanese; who did not gain passes of five subjects at CXC, to have a “do-over” of their education and a chance to secure a proper job or enter a university and further studies upon completion of the GED course, that was supposed to last six months.
“It’s been nine (9) months since the course started. The `lecturers’ stopped all classes since early February of 2023.
“We were told we would be writing our final examinations late February or early March and were advised to continue studying.
“As the time grew closer, we anticipated our final examinations since we’ve studied and put in a lot of work, submitting every course work as they came.
“I was amongst the many who were called and told that final examinations will be done between March 27th to 31st and I was given the option of which day I would prefer to sit my exams. Some other people had letters sent to their jobs from the Georgetown American University requesting time off to facilitate the writing of the examination. All exams were indicated to be written at ‘ATC’ in Georgetown. Keep in mind, persons taking the GED course are from areas all through Guyana, such as Berbice, Lethem and Linden. So if persons from those areas were called to write exams on this date they would have had to start making preparations as to all necessary out of town accommodations. All this, only to be sent an email on the day of the 27th to say that the exams were cancelled”, the student wrote.
About two weeks after the cancellation of the exams the student said that they were sent a link for an online mock exam and were told to complete the mock exam and send the results to their mentors and persons with “low scores” would not be able to write the actual exam.
“We were also told that after sending our mock exam score to our mentors, we would be given a voucher along with a date to write our exams, so we went ahead and did the mock exam for all four (4) subjects (Mathematics, Science, Social-Studies and Language Arts).
“The GED course was introduced as a `Free’ course but now our mentors are making sure to tell us that every subject cost about $80USD, which would be paid by the government but if we don’t pass a subject we would have to pay that money to write it back.
“One mentor explained that they are only able to take a small amount of people at a time to do the exams because of the location they were given to do the exams in”, the student wrote.
Since then, the student said that whenever they asked about the exams the reply would be, “we are awaiting word from GOAL“.
