by DONNA SEALY

BARBADOS' EDUCATION AUTHORITIES are not involved in any security breach with the Caribbean Examinations Council's (CXC) Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination papers.

Both Chief Education Officer Wendy Griffith-Watson and Deputy Chief Education Officer Idamay Denny, who is also CXC's local registrar, made this position very clear yesterday in separate telephone interviews.

They said people were linking the Ministry of Education with the leaked CAPE Communications Studies paper as well as the physics, chemistry, and biology papers in Trinidad and Tobago after a Trinidad Express story appeared in yesterday's DAILY NATION quoting a source as suggesting the "leak is happening in Barbados".

Denny said emphatically: "You need to make it abundantly clear that it is not the Ministry of Education and the local examination organisation that caused the compromise."

Griffith-Watson added: "The CXC headquarters is in Barbados so when they say something happened, they mean at their CXC office and not the Ministry of Education. We have nothing to do with it."

The Chief Education Officer also said on Starcom Network's Down To Brasstacks call-in radio programme yesterday that no one from CXC had called to say that Barbados "was in breach of anything".

"Once we are not informed about that, then we are expected to carry on as usual," she said. "Exams will continue as scheduled unless there is something they feel regionally. In one territory you may have a breach but because of technology nowadays if CXC feels that breach might have spread to another territory then they would have to scrap that exam for the whole region."

She said it was "alarming" that a breach could occur in any territory and the ministry had "a tight rein" on how exam papers were stored, going to the "real extreme to ensure that the persons who were involved are actually toeing the line".

CXC's assistant registrar, Public Information, Cleveland Sam told the DAILY NATION that "only the CAPE exams in Trinidad and Tobago have been postponed, not the other participating territories, where exams will continue".

All CAPE exams scheduled for yesterday and continuing until June 13 have been cancelled in the twin island republic.

This position was also contained in a release issued later in the evening in which Sam said "the council and the Ministry of Education in Trinidad and Tobago are working with law enforcement authorities to fully investigate the circumstances which led to the decision to take this action in Trinidad and Tobago.

"The council further wishes to assure the public that it is doing all within its power to maintain the integrity of its examinations and work in the best interest of students."

CXC Registrar Dr Didacus Jules, senior manager Guy Hewitt, and senior assistant registrar in charge of exam administration Baldwin Hercules flew to Trinidad yesterday morning for a meeting with officials who are investigating the matter.

Jules will host a Press conference in Trinidad at ten this morning to address the issue.