CABINET has approved a submission from Minister of Education and Youth Maxine Henry-Wilson for the appointment of the members of the first Commission of Overseas Examinations.

Minister of Information and Development Donald Buchanan, who made the announcement at the December 18 post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House, said that the Commission would serve for a three-year period from December 1, 2006 to November 30, 2009.

The members of the Commission, which will be chaired by executive director of the Mona School of Business, Dr Neville Ying, are permanent secretary in the Education Ministry Maria Jones; Professor Stafford Griffith of the University of the West Indies; Dr Colin Jires from the University of Technology; Juliet Jones representing the Council of Community Colleges in Jamaica; Wesley Barrett of the Caribbean Examinations Council; Kenneth Letts from the Association of Principals and Vice-principals; Jacqueline Clarke, of Northern Caribbean University; Joan Tucker, of the Joint Board of Teacher Education and Paul Adams, representing the Jamaica Teachers’ Association.

Minister Buchanan said three additional representatives were to be named by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, while a secondary level and a teachers’ college student will also be selected.

The House of Representatives had, in May 2005, approved the Overseas Examination Commission Act 2005, paving the way for the Commission to be converted into a statutory body.

The Commission is a corporate body with responsibility for ensuring the proper administration and monitoring of all overseas and regional examinations on behalf of the ministry.

The education minister had said, during the piloting of the Bill last year, that the Commission would have some 16 members drawn from the private and public sectors as well as academic institutions, to ensure that all interests were represented.

Furthermore, she informed that the functions of the Commission would be:

. to maintain good order in terms of the administration of examinations;

. administer all specified examinations;

. ensure adherence by schools and candidates to rules and regulations;

. determine and collect examination fees; and

. take responsibility for the sale of syllabi.

The body will also be charged with the preparation and issuing of transcripts of examination results, the verification and certification of results; and the maintenance of records in relation to specified examinations.

The Commission, which is empowered to charge fees, is largely self-financing and a new state-of-the-art facility is being built to house the body.

– JIS