THE Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) in Barbados yesterday told Jamaican and other regional candidates sitting the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) mathematics examination today that the exam will proceed as planned, despite a leak of the paper in Guyana.

Guyana’s Stabroek News reported yesterday that the country’s education minister Dr Henry Jeffrey has postponed the mathematics examination and recalled the papers while they investigate the source of the leak.

According to the article, copies of the CSEC mathematics paper were being distributed and sold in parts of the country, and online at prices ranging from $20,000 (J$6,896.36) to $50,000 (J$17,240.90).

Cleveland Sam, the assistant registrar responsible for public information at the CXC head office in Barbados, told the Observer there have been numerous calls from across the region since the publication of the newspaper’s story.

“We were getting some calls not just from students from Barbados but in other Caribbean countries and people and the radio stations were picking it (the news) up and were getting confused,” Sam said.

However, he said that so far Guyana was the only country affected by the breach and the participating territories were all advised of this yesterday.

This week’s paper tampering was not the first for Guyana.

Last year, thousands of Guyana’s students were affected when the CXC withheld the exam results for four subjects, including mathematics, to investigate what authorities described as “extensive tampering” of examination papers. The results were later released.