AMID growing controversy over the award of scholarships based on this year’s Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), the Ministry of Education yesterday said it was standing by its award of the scholarships following a review of the scores of the students involved.

“This review has satisfied the ministry that it awarded the scholarships for the 2008 sitting of the GSAT exam to the correct candidates,” the ministry said in a statement.

According to the ministry, “There is misunderstanding among parents on how students are ranked for placement and the award of scholarships from the GSAT exam”.

As a result, Education Minister Andrew Holness is to explain the process of awarding scholarships in a Ministry Paper to be tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.

The ministry’s announcement followed a challenge to the award of the top male student in this year’s exam from Dr Ohmar Tun, mother of Win Phyo, a student of Mount Alvernia Preparatory School in Montego Bay. Dr Tun is contending that her son should be the top boy, and not James Robertson of Junior Plus Prep School in the same city.

But a source at the ministry told the Observer that “the child from Mount Alvernia (Win Phyo) based on the standardised score is ranked number five (in the island)”.

“The ministry reviewed all the issues raised with the external administrators of the exam, to see if there were any issues with the actual scores; there wasn’t, so based on that they stuck with the original scores,” the source said.

The source said that the top performers were not arrived at by adding the percentages in the different subjects and coming up with a mean score. “Different subjects are weighted differently,” the source said.