Rewarded at last - Ministry redeems 2007 scholarship nominee with $1.4m
June 13, 2008
Kristi Charles, the child who was denied a Scotiabank Jamaica Foundation Scholarship for her performance in the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) last year, has now been granted $1.4 million towards her Harvard college fund.
Kristi, who received the highest grades islandwide in the 2007 GSAT, was not recommended for the Scotiabank award when the Ministry of Education claimed there was a possibility she could have been exposed to the test paper.
Court battle
But yesterday, after a month-long court battle with the child's parents, Education Minister Andrew Holness presented Kristi with the Ministry of Education's Excellence Scholarship, valued at $205,000 per annum over seven years.
Kristi's mother, Cleopatra Charles, told The Gleaner yesterday she planned to save or invest the money as "Kristi wants to go to (Ivy League United States College) Harvard to study medicine".
Charles brought the ministry to court in February after it claimed there was a possibility the student might have seen the test paper which was allegedly leaked to the homework centre she attended.
Justice Bryan Sykes ruled against the ministry, saying its actions breached the rules of natural justice and that there was no evidence the student had been exposed to the paper.
"Unfortunately, last year we were not able to recognise and celebrate the high performance of Kristi Charles who in fact scored the highest grades in the GSAT examinations," Holness said yesterday during the presentation ceremony, held at the education ministry's head offices in Kingston.
Holness said the Excellence Scholarship was an equally good award to give to Kristi as "somebody else already holds the title for last year, so we had to find an appropriate title that communicated the excellence of her performance".
The education minister said the GSAT examination was perhaps the most important examination in Jamaica, adding that for many parents the test determined the life outcome of their children....
Author: Petrina Francis
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
