Postpone??

Not sure who's following the crazy situation in Jamaica at the moment and I hope all my Jamaican bloggers and commentators stay safe.

Now I dont have any other info on whats happening there at the moment but reading through the articles on the Jamaica Gleaner website this one sort of caught my eye.

While Education Minister Andrew Holness and his technocrats were busy yesterday with the technicalities of easing disruptions to the sitting of external examinations because of the violence in Kingston, there were hundreds of students living the reality.

For these students, struggling to get to an examination centre - possibly at institutions they had never before visited in their lives - was the easy part.

Sitting an external exam while gunfire echoed was much more difficult.

"We heard a lot of guns barking, and every time I hear them, I jumped," said one student of the Convent of Mercy (Alpha) Academy yesterday.

She was among a group of sixth-form students who sat a Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) yesterday morning.

While the exam was in progress, gunmen and police engaged in a more-than-hour-long gun battle metres away.

Hmmmmm

Ya mean to say nuhbody couldn't cancel these exams? I would give GCE and A level a blige but CAPE is a Caribbean exam thing. Ya mean they couldn't say ease the children instead of having them run through dangerous situations to go sit an exam? Cuhdear! And who can concentrate on an exam when gunshots lashing all round the place an ya not even sure ya can mek it home or ya gine have a home to mek it back to when all said n done?

Looka exams duz be hard enough as it is under normal situations but then to be doing exams in what for all intents and purposes is a war zone. You expect dem children remember anything them learn or read in a book when two gunshots let off and dem jump? How is this a fair test anyways unless ya preparing them to go to University in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Come on now, no matter external or not these exams could have been postponed cause this goes way beyond unusual circumstance and it really not fair to these young people. Even if ya tekkin it into consideration when ya marking the exam this still not right. The exams shoulda postpone till the shooting stop and things better. This is really a dumb move on behalf of the people that running this show.