Marked Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) transcripts can be disclosed by the Education Ministry to parents who request them. But the same does not not apply to Caribbean Advance Proficiency Examination (CAPE) transcripts.

This was the ruling of the Appeal Court last week in three consolidated appeals brought by the Education Ministry.

In their ruling, Justices Nolan Bereaux, Mark Mohammed and Peter Rajkumar dismissed two of the ministry’s appeals which related to two separate requests by parents for their children’s marked SEA transcripts.

The third appeal, which was upheld, related to a request by a parent for his daughter’s CAPE transcript.

The judges held that the SEA exam was the subject of a written agreement between the ministry and the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), but the CAPE exam was not the subject of a comprehensive written agreement. CXC sets and grades the annual examinations.

In separate requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), three parents requested their children’s exam transcripts to query the results.

Alicia Dalipsingh and Roger Simon applied for their children’s SEA transcripts while Nicholas Lue Sue requested his child’s CAPE transcripts.

Their requests were denied by the ministry on the grounds that CXC had possession of the transcripts. Their lawsuits were upheld in the High Court

At the High Court, the judges who upheld the parents’ lawsuits were heavily critical of the ministry for refusing to disclose them.

In submissions before the Court of Appeal, attorneys for the ministry argued when the FOIA requests came in for the SEA and CAPE exam scripts, they had been sent to CXC since the marking and reviews were completed and CXC retained the scripts. By that time, they had been destroyed.

Douglas Mendes, SC, who appeared for the ministry, said the court will have to determine if the exam scripts can be considered “official documents” under the FOIA and if there is an enforceable legal right to access, particularly the SEA scripts.

“Even if there is a legal right to the scripts, the ministry cannot enforce it,” Mendes said.

He pointed to provisions of the Caribbean Examinations Council (Privileges and Immunities) Act, which includes an arbitration clause which protects the Barbados-based entity from legal action.

He said in the case of the SEA scripts, had the matter gone to arbitration and the students were successful, then it was expected CXC would comply. However, there is no such provision as it related to the CAPE examination.

Mendes conceded by virtue of the arbitration clause, it could lead to an enforceable legal right.

Representing one of the SEA parents, Anand Ramlogan, SC, argued there was a flaw in the argument that the ministry did not have a right to access the scripts because that was CXC’s right.

He said it would be prejudicial to good public administration if students did not have access to their scripts when the ministry’s mandate of promoting education under the Education Act was considered. He also raised the issue of