Students to receive exam results in privacy [1]
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 21:50. Updated on Monday, January 19, 2015 - 16:09.
Tonga's senior examination results will no longer be broadcast on national radio, and students will in future receive their results privately.
Dr Viliami Fukofuka, the CEO of the Ministry of Education, confirmed today, that the Ministry had decided not to broadcast the exam results for the Form 5, 6 and 7 level this year, ending a long tradition of publicly announcing the names of students who had passed their exams.
Instead, results will be disclosed from the regional examination authorities in Fiji directly to individual high schools and students can privately receive their results from their own schools.
The CEO believed that in the past the schools put more emphasis on the exams, thus neglecting a vital aspect of education, he said, which is to complete the whole syllabus required to be taught at that level.
"It has resulted in education in Tonga being steered only to cater to a portion of the syllabus that the teachers think the exam will likely cover, and they neglect the rest, so we are hoping to change that attitude."
Encourage students
He added that another reason for the change was that students not named were looked down upon and referred to as bad students.
"This new way will help maintain the students' integrity and encourage them to try harder, thus providing every student with their right to the privacy of their results," said the CEO.
"Government High Schools will cease to publicly broadcast their exam results but church schools are free to disclose their results to their students in any way they wish, but we hope they adopt what we are doing," he added.
The results for the 2007 Form Six Pacific Senior Secondary Examination (PSSC) and the 2007 Form 7 exams were released this week to schools, leaving the results of the Tonga School Certificate of the Form 5 level to be released later in the week.