THE more than 40 Penwood High school students who received “ungraded” scores from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) for six subjects because of the non-submission of their School Based Assessment (SBA) in this year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations should know their new results by the end of October.

CXC decided to accept the late SBAs following various intervention, including that of the Ministry of Education, after the St Andrew school had failed to meet the July deadline for the requisite samples of their SBAs to be submitted.

The education ministry yesterday said CXC is now marking the papers and would release the scores at the usual time when final results are usually released.

A joint statement by CXC, the ministry, and the Overseas Examination Commission, said Jamaica had reached an amicable agreement with the parties as it relates to the issues surrounding the Penwood case.

“The meeting which examined the systems and protocols which exist within both organisations (CXC and the Ministry of Education) to address various issues reinforced the principles that govern the partnership relationship between the two entities and procedures that are to be followed when problems occur. Both entities gave commitments to improve communication between the organisations as well as to strengthen the existing working relationship,” the statement said.

Furthermore the ministry said that while CXC has clear policies to ensure that the rights of candidates are not prejudiced from any actions that affect their performance, there is a need for those policies to be reviewed, taking into consideration the thrust towards electronic and online testing.

“Allowance and contingencies must be put in place to support the transition,” the release stated.