Parents flock for school transfers

Despite assurances from Education Min­ister Anthony Garcia that the placement of successful SEA pupils was above board, doz­ens of anxious parents gathered at the Victoria District Educational Office in San Fernan­do yesterday, request­ing transfers for their children.

Insisting that the SEA placements were biased, the parents said they could not understand how some students who scored above 65 per cent in the exams were assigned to secondary schools which were not on their list of choices.

For the second con­secutive day, a steady stream of parents went to the office at Sutton Street to request trans­fers. SEA results were released on Tuesday. Over 18,000 pupils wrote the exam and just over 2,000 scored less than 30 per cent score. 1,200 of those students will still be guaranteed a place at a secondary school while 800 of them will be giv­en the option of re-sitting the exam next year.

Debbie Reynold, whose daughter Rebecca Sin­gh attended BienVenue Presbyterian Primary School said she was sur­prised that her daughter passed for La Romaine Secondary School when she scored better grades than her peers.

“Some of the pupils had lower grades but they passed for ASJA. Some­thing is not right about these results,” Reynold said. She said the result slip showed that Singh was the 34th female and 41st national.

“This is the second day that we came here. Yes­terday, one of the school supervisors came out and said nobody getting any transfers but we came back today hoping that she could get in at Mod Sec (San Fernando Cen­tral) or San Fernando West,” Reynold said. Af­ter speaking to a school supervisor, Reynold said she was advised to reg­ister her daughter at La Romaine and leave the transfer form at that school.

“I was told that La Romaine will submit the transfer form to the min­istry but I don’t know if that will happen. I think it is suspicious that my daughter scored a 60 per cent average and she was assigned to La Romaine when we did not even put that school on our choice of schools. She noted that La Romaine was not in their residential zone and having her child attend there was inconvenient.

Another parent, who requested anonymity, said the zoning criteria which the Ministry used was unfair.

“Maybe they zoned the child based on where the primary school was locat­ed and not where the child lives,” the parent said.

Meanwhile, Minister in the Ministry of Educa­tion Dr Lovell Francis said the criteria used to place students included merit, school choices, gender, principal’s 20 per cent selection in denomina­tional schools and where the student resided.

Education Minister Anthony Garcia said if parents put high per­forming schools as all four choices and the child fails to qualify on the basis of merit, then the child is assigned to a school clos­est to his/her residence.