Female students miss out

By ELIAS LARI
SOME girls who did their Grade 12 last year at the Notre Dame Girls Secondary in Western Highlands have missed out on securing positions in tertiary institutions because of an error by the measurement service branch of the Education Department.
Of those who completed the year, only 26 entries were correct while the rest were incorrect.
Provincial guidance officer Ben Malari and school principal Sr Mary Vivette went through all the students’ transcripts and found a major error by the MSB.
Frustrated parents gathered at the school ground on Monday and demanded an answer from the MSB office.
The parents presented a petition to the branch director Greg Kapanombo.
The petition stated that Kapanombo must liaise with the Office of Higher Education (OHE) to reconsider those who missed out because of the applied English grades and respond to it by Friday.
The petition said Kapanombo must ensure the correct grading was printed onto the Grade 12 certificates, give a detailed explanation to the parents and penalise MSB officers responsible for processing the final examination results.
The parents said if they did not receive any response by Friday they would obtain a restraining order against the OHE and sue Kapanombo and the Education Department for negligence.
Parents claimed that Kapanombo and the OHE were aware of this problem and yet did nothing to help the students.
They said Kapanombo admitted there were errors in the processing of marks for the grade 12 Applied English but nothing had been done to solve the problem.
Parents said very bright students received low marks.
They said the marks were shocking because they did not reflect the standard and results of the school.
Parents said many students with good marks had missed out on continuing their education.
Parents asked that the correct marks be printed on the certificates and students must be selected at a later date and be offered scholarships.
They said the office of the MSB must inform selectors of the errors and give consideration to the students to continue their studies at universities or colleges.
The school also wrote to the MSB  office of MSB about the error.