The Editor, Sir:
THE GLEANER of Tuesday, August 12, published a letter from one R. H. Alexander who commented on the analysis of the 2002 CXC examinations results made by Professor Stephen Vasciannie in a series of articles in The Gleaner.
While I agree with R. H. Alexander that "By lumping grades 1, 2 and 3 together, the quality of the passes is ignored ...", however, I fail to see the usefulness of the arguments presented in subsequent paragraphs. Therefore, I would like to suggest a simple and well-known extension of the method used by Professor Vasciannie to gauge the spread of the marks for a particular subject. Points are awarded to specific grade passes according to the following system:
Grade 1 - 3 points
Grade 2 - 2 points
Grade 3 - 1 point
Grade 4 and below - 0 points
For each school and each subject, a ranking would be calculated by dividing the total number of points obtained by the number of students eligible to sit the examination.
Ranking schools by the above method would allow for a greater weighting to be given to higher grades over lower ones as suggested by R. H. Alexander. Not having the publication from which Professor Vasciannie got his figures, I cannot present an analysis of the marks, but I hope the Professor will oblige and publish a review of the grades using the above or similar method.
I am etc.,
Kevin Johnson
ivanjam@hotmail.com
Via Go-Jamaica
