“A mythicized being has simply no existence”
I recall having read the sentence quoted above back in the 1970’s when I, too, was a student of Agriculture  at UWI and active in the fight to defend the rights of students in that period of firmament still boiling in our society.
The recent mass complaints by students and their parents concerning the results of the recent COVID-affected CXC CSEC and CAPE exams caused me to reflect once again on this question of the mythicized being
In this case, there are several – stakeholder, student, parent, examination authority, educator, education ministry.
Having been invited to join a Facebook Group titled “Re-mark And Re-issue CAPE June 2020 results”, I was compelled to try and understand what the concerns of the parents who created it really were.
CXC, the regional examination authority, faced like we all were and are with the intrusion of the COVID pandemic into what we accepted as the rhythm of our lives, felt compelled to make adjustments to the timing and the structure of its examinations in 2020.
There were clearly anxieties about not postponing the examinations into 2021 or beyond. After all, these secondary school exams (like the SEA at primary level) are critical points in the established educational project plan that we call our ‘education system’.
The CXC, with the consensus of the Education Ministries of the Region, decided to hold the secondary school exams in July (despite the fact that students who were at their “peak” of preparation were no longer in schools.
To make this deadline stick, the assessment criteria (elements and the contribution of each to the final grading) had to be adjusted. The usual number of written assessments in the exam room had to be reduced to a single multiple-choice paper for most subjects. This score was to be combined with School Based Assessment marks obtained from either SBA or IA papers previously marked by the schools themselves and used to assess scholarship potential.
On the recent release of the examination results, a tsunami of discontent has rushed across our Caribbean territories even in the midst of varying degrees of COVID spread already plaguing our lands.
I am eternally grateful to the Cipriani Labour College for having afforded we, adjunct faculty, the opportunity for some training in assessment principles and practice during my decade of lecturing with that institution.
So, when the issues of weighting of the SBA/IA scores v the written exam scores, of whether there were agreed rubrics and such things arose in the conversation about these results, I was able to appreciate some of the concerns being expressed.
The latest response of the CXC Registrar inviting dissatisfied students and their parents to seek ‘business-as-usual’ reviews of the troubling grades, because ‘the results stand’ brought the notion of the mythicized being vividly back to my mind.
How dare those defined as ‘students’, parents’ or ‘stakeholders’ challenge the mighty institution of the ‘examination council’.
Once we define these ‘mythicized beings’, those so defined cannot live this being, they can only preserve it, defend its non-living definition.
So, the mythicized infallible examinations council, just like Sparrow’s 60 million French men, just “can’t be wrong”. The results still stand. You other mythicized non-beings, just pay your review fee and hush your mouth, CXC tells students and parents who dare question them.
In all of this, the dehumanized non-beings called ‘students’ are deprived of being recognized as human beings who have Rights. Any student signing up for a course of study or to do any exam has the RIGHT TO KNOW precisely what the assessment criteria and process to be used to assess their achievement of learning outcomes.
The CXC and the Ministries of Education which we are told had consensus on the holding of these exams had a DUTY to Satisfy this Right of All  the students. The fact hat CXC cannot or refuses to provide answers to questions about the weight applied to SBA marks is just more refusal to satisfy this Right.
As someone who has had some experience teaching at secondary and more at tertiary levels, I am most dissatisfied that it appears that students went into an examination WITHOUT THE FULFILLMENT OF THEIR RIGHT TO BE FULLY INFORMED OF THE ASSESSMENT CRITERIA AND PROCESS.
As a citizen, I am totally disappointed that our elected officials at the Education Ministry and Government did not ensure that the students’ Rights (and their parents) to full information on the basis for the revised assessment methods for these important exams.
Our ‘education system’ has long been a system of certification on which the futures of our children depend. Now that the examinations have been remodelled and the outcome are not satisfactory, the anxieties of students and their parents are pushed aside and defending the mythicized ‘examination council’ becomes priority  one.
The silence of the PTA’s, the Teachers’ Union, Education Ministry and Government on this issue of the Rights of Students is cause for deep concern.
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for the
Rights of All
27 September 2020
 

 As I awoke this morning, in the middle of Independence Season 2020, I happened to scan through the pages of my book Speaking Out[1] and came across this letter I wrote to the newspapers in the same season 27 years ago.
As Rudder put it – Déjà vu, I suppose.
Just thought I would share it as we reflect on 58 years of our Independence experience.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose[2]? – You think?
                      &&&&&
Independence Season
Well, this one is a scorcher! It's hardly two hours since sunrise and already. as I sit at the keyboard, I can feel the beads of sweat running down my neck.
"No typical early morning shower this year". I can hear the television announcers voice from across the room.
Well, it's Independence morning. Everything is there. Well appointed, as they say. The President standing stiff as my grandmother's starched clothes in his jeep. The red, white and black just as stiff in the early morning breeze. The soldiers, the police, the firemen, all the uniforms stiff and starchy, too.
You just can't, say the trappings aren't intact. Even the Prime Minister is back from Uncle Sam's huddle.
"Thirty First of August, Nineteen Sixty Two
I, ah Little Dadda Head Boy
Standing on de Bypass
As Colonial Motorcade with de Queen Face Pass
On de Bypass  "
Lance Doughty's[3] old rapso poem flashes across my mind.
Thirty-one years are gone. How yuh feel?
I recall those childhood visions. We moved up to Green Street that year. TV came in that year too. TTT, the same station that I have on this morning. Bun and soft drink in school. We gather downstairs EC school. "Hail to the Day, .... This is our Land's Great Dawning" we sang with gusto.
That night we went for a drive in town[4]. Lights. Banners. Frederick Street decorated for so. Then the Fireworks.
I was only approaching seven then, but those images stuck, almost hauntingly.
Who could have escaped the euphoria of that day? It was a birth and like any other, a time for celebration that no one had to put on.
Now, everything seems stiff and starched. Like we loss de spirit or what!
Well, perhaps I can console myself. This is only the first morning of Independence Season, August 31 to September 24. Maybe like all the other seasons we celebrate, it's off to a slow start.
Scanning the newspaper headlines of Sunday's Guardian, there on the front page "Mixed Views on Manning govt" and "US$25m loan for TT - Govt borrows from Republic for debt service"
Coincidental with the eve of Republic Season, the first headline tops a story about a survey on "how well the Patrick Manning government is managing" my independent country. Who is making such a survey. Well, well .... " a survey sponsored by the United States Information Agency" the article goes on.
What an insult!!! Can you imagine an agency of the T&T embassy in Washington or New York, London, or Bridgetown commissioning a survey on how the national government of that country is managing?
What ever happened to our sovereignty? Why are we tolerating this blatant interference in our internal business?
What we think about the Trinidad & Tobago Government is Trini business. No foreign government or embassy, Sally Cowal[5] or anyone else has any right to be sticking their nose in our business like that.
What patriotism is left when a "national newspaper", our Guardian of Democracy carries this insult without a whimper of protest on its front pages, two days before our Independence Day.
Or are we supposed to accept the fact that Massah Day Eh Really Done?
Perhaps, because Republic (sic) bank lends government $25m US to pay foreign debt.
After all who pays the piper calls the tune.
What a start to my Independence Season!
Well at least it keeps you facing reality. What we thought we had thirty-one years ago still remains an aspiration. Formal independence, declarations, anthems and flags mean very little if you depend on others for your finances and livelihood, allow meddlesome foreigners to dabble in your nation's business and attempt to shape public opinion with their surveys and polls.
I, for one will make my Season's resolution - The aspirations and hopes of August 31,1962 must be made a reality.
We must all rededicate ourselves, put all our energies into the struggle to have genuine independence in this land of ours, to be a sovereign people determining our future free from outside interference, owning and controlling our resources and putting them to the best use in the interest of our people. We na' give up!
1993:August:31
 
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Speaking-Out-Collection-Letters-Writings-ebook/dp/B07KSPL17M/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=clyde+weatherhead&qid=1599308678&s=books&sr=1-6

[2] The more things change, the more it’s the same thing

[3] Lance Doughty, a poet from San Fernando

[4] Port of Spain

[5] US Ambassador to TT at the time