All School Based Assessments (SBAs) must be graded by teachers.
That directive is coming from the Ministry of Education in response to the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) claim that students will not be disadvantaged by the decision of its members not to grade SBAs.
In a press release issued today, the Ministry warned that it was the children who would lose out since they could not get a grade for CSEC or CAPE subjects without a marked SBA.
Noting that neither the Ministry nor the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) could mark SBAs, as that is a continuous assessment that must be done at the school, the Ministry said it was the responsibility of a subject teacher to mark students’ work and submit it.
“For the record, submitted means marked with a score . . . CXC is responsible for the marking of the examination and provides the student’s overall grades based on the marked SBA, submitted by the school, and the score obtained by the student in the examination.
“The student will therefore be disadvantaged if the SBA is not marked, and will also be disadvantaged in their pursuit of higher education at universities and other tertiary institutions or entry into Sixth Form, because they will not be awarded a grade for a CSEC or CAPE subject without the graded SBA submitted by the teacher,” the release said.
On this basis, the Ministry dismissed the BSTU assertion that it was the responsibility of CXC to get the SBAs graded once they were submitted.