The mother of an 11-year-old girl has taken the Ministry of Education to the Supreme Court over its refusal to recommend the child for a private scholarship although she had the highest score for girls in the 2007 GSAT examination.

It is the practice that the boy and girl with the highest scores are recommended to the Scotia Jamaica Foundation for scholarships.

The mother said after the name of the female awardee for the scholarship was published, she contacted the Ministry of Education because the awardee had the second highest score.

In its response, the ministry is alleging that the girl with the highest score was unwittingly exposed to the 2007 GSAT questions at a homework centre in St Andrew, thereby giving her an unfair advantage over others. It claims that was the reason it did not recommend the girl for the scholarship. The ministry claims that it conducted an investigation at the homework centre before the examination.

denies exposure

However, the girl's mother who is being represented by attorney-at-law André Earle is denying that there was any such exposure. She is also contending that when an investigator visited the homework centre there were three topics from which the students were each asked to choose one to write on.

One of the three topics was on the communication tasks paper in the examination, but the teacher at the centre said she had no idea that the particular topic, which was an essay on 'My School', would be on the examination paper.

The mother is asking the Judicial Review Court to quash the ministry's decision not to recommend her daughter for the scholarship. She is also seeking an order compelling the ministry to inform Scotia Jamaica Foundation that her daughter had the highest score for girls.The motion came up for hearing yesterday but was put off to April 3.