NORMAN GRINDLEY/DEPUTY CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
Students of the August Town Primary School in St. Andrew prepare yesterday for the GSAT examinations which start today. They will end tomorrow.
Petrina Francis
and Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporters
THE POLICE, in tandem with school administrators are ensuring that students from violence-ravaged communities slated to sit the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) - today and tomorrow - will be able to do so.
Some 51,000 grade 6 students across the island have registered to sit the examination. The GSAT replaced the Common Entrance Examinations in 1999. Performance in the test will determine the placement of students in secondary schools.
Students from the troubled area of March Pen Road in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, will be granted the privilege of a police escort through their embattled community
to sit the examination this morning.
"The children ought to be given the necessary protection, particularly to go and do their GSAT examination," said Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police Leon Rose.
He said that he would contact the Spanish Town police and give the directive for the students in that crime-ridden area to be escorted to their exams today.
A LONGER ROUTE TO SCHOOL
The senior officer made this disclosure after he learnt that students from certain sections of the March Pen Road community, which was recently plunged into a state of anarchy, had to be taking a longer route in order to get to school.
Raymoth Notice, Spanish Town's Mayor, was aware of the situation but indicated that his hands were tied. "It is a very sad crisis (but) I am not sure how much the Parish Council can help. It is a security issue, but urgent help is needed for the children," he said.
Meantime, administrators have made preparations for students from August Town Primary and Elletson Primary to sit the examinations at safer centres. Both communities have been experiencing an outbreak in violence.
Joan Headman, vice-principal of August Town Primary, said that arrangements have been made for the 83 students to sit the examination at the Hope Valley Experimental School; while a senior administrator at the Elletson Primary said that their students would sit the examination at the Jessie Ripoll Primary School.
