A secondary school teacher is currently under investigation by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) for allegedly leaking examination questions to students writing the 2015 Cape examinations via the social media site Facebook.
Several parents and teachers have raised concerns to the Guardian over the past few days that the teacher has been hosting discussions with a group of students on an online platform on Facebook involving over 3,000 students late at nights.
One secondary teacher in south Trinidad said in an interview that teachers, like herself, are stressed over the situation.
“This has caused mental disturbance. It is like a nightmare for us to know that we work so hard to teach our students and work with them and our students are burning the midnight oil studying and cramming and just so on Facebook other students liaise with this teacher and come out the exam room saying it was easy like a breeze.
This is so unfair. We are having sleepless nights worrying over this and nobody seems to be taking this serious. I wonder why?”
One concerned parent, Marlene Summers, said the situation was brought to her attention by her daughter, who is currently sitting the Cape examinations.
“This pertains primarily to the compulsory Caribbean Studies exam and also other subject areas such as Communication Studies, Sociology, Economics, Management of Business and Entrepreneurship,” Summers said.
“A startling realisation has been made by not only myself but other parents and teachers of what seems to be online discussions that directly pertain to the questions that appear on the Caribbean Studies paper this year in at least six out of a total of eight questions. I hasten to point out, after doing some research, that this is not the only year that this successful lessons teacher has been able to directly predict the content of papers,” she added.
Another secondary school teacher, when contacted, spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying, “Just imagine the teacher predicted a question that wasn't explicitly stated in the syllabus and it came for the economics exam today (Thursday).”
“This is too strange and too unusual.”
CXC investigating claims
Cleveland Sam, assistant registrar, Public Information and Customer Services, Caribbean Examinations Council, in Barbados, confirmed on Thursday that an investigation into the allegations of a leak in the Cape examinations 2015 was still ongoing.
“CXC takes all such allegations seriously and investigates them fully. To date, CXC does not have any conclusive evidence that any breach occurred,” Sam said.
Sam added that CXC had contacted the Ministry of Education on the matter.
Communications specialist at the Ministry of Education, Alicia Busby, said the ministry was aware of the allegations but noted that the ministry and CXC had completed their investigations and cleared the teacher in question.
Busby added that both the ministry and CXC interviewed relevant people, including the teacher, as part of their investigation. She said checks were physically made of the packaging of the exam papers and these revealed that the seals were not tampered with before the allotted exam time, neither were the serial numbers on the packages altered.
Teacher claims no wrongdoing
Guardian visited the Facebook closed group page and saw that there were 3,288 members in the group.
There is a profile of the teacher saying that he has degrees in Economics (Hons) and Sociology (Hons) and a diploma in Public Sector Management from the University of the West Indies (UWI). The teacher also has, according to the description stated on the social media Web site, a Masters in Business Management and a Masters in Education (Curriculum) at UWI.
It added that the teacher has many years experience in teaching Form 6 at the secondary school level and is a lecturer at a tertiary education institute.
“Most of the ‘predictions’ are made within 12.15 am to 1.17 am of Tuesday 5th May, 2015,” the profile read.
On May 3, the teacher also held an eight-hour crash course at a popular secondary school in Couva.
Students posted praises on the page to the teacher for his exam predictions.
On May 4 at 11.05 pm, a student from Chaguanas wrote: “(teacher’s name) the obeah man, with the best predictions of what's coming for exams!”
When contacted on the allegations, the teacher told the Guardian, “The Ministry of Education cleared me of any wrongdoing. So I have no further comment on the matter. Thank you.”