The quiz show quandary which left students in tears on TV has finally been solved -- and put down to a photocopying error.

But organisers have revealed that every school which took part in Saturday night's contest was victimised, and not just last-placed Clearwater Middle School.

There were more questions than answers during the ZBM TV interval of the National Quiz Contest for Schools, with distraught children claiming they could not answer several questions.

The embarrassed youngsters felt so humiliated they did not want to return to their seats after the interval.

Then it was announced that Clearwater students had not received a full set of research facts to answer all of the 2,000 questions put to the teams.

Director of Youth and Sport Brenton Roberts apologised for the TV trauma and immediately ordered an investigation into what went wrong.

And last night he revealed that Clearwater was denied more material than any other school and said a donation would be made to their funds to apologise.

But Mr. Roberts said Saltus and Sandys Middle School were also badly affected by the error.

And he admitted that none of the six teams received all the correct research information.

The quiz contest committee confirmed the photocopying faux-pas after a 90-minute emergency meeting yesterday afternoon.

Mr. Roberts said: "All schools were affected to varying degrees, although Clearwater were the most severely affected.

"The error was due to human oversight and the committee is satisfied that it was not malicious or intentional.

"Apart from myself and the clerical support staff, the committee is made up of volunteers and each of us expect the same standards of care to be applied to our respective roles and tasks.

"Unfortunately, on this occasion a human error overshadowed our best intentions.

"The committee wishes to recognise however that this programme has been operating successfully for 13 years.

"We offer our sincere apologies to all schools affected by this unfortunate error and hope that it will not dampen the enthusiasm and the purposes for which this competition was born -- to help our young people learn about our Island in a non-threatening, fun environment.'' He said Clearwater had lost access to "a considerable number'' of questions but would not specify how many.

And Mr. Roberts did not reveal how much would be donated to Clearwater School Funds as compensation.

Clearwater teacher Terrylynn Weeks said the public apology was a reward for her distressed students, all 11 years old.

"I'm glad it's been admitted that there was an error and we are satisfied with that,'' she said.

"It puts us in a better light because we obviously weren't on a level playing field and that's now been recognised.

"The children had worked so hard for this.'' The contest was won by students from Warwick Academy, who also claimed the title in 1997.

EDUCATION ED