More than a month into the new school year the Ministry of Education has yet to release last year's graduation rates or GCSE results.

Private schools across the Island released their GCSE results a month ago and multiple requests have been sent to Government to do the same.

But the requests have gone unanswered for the past three months.

This newspaper put in requests for graduation rates and GCSE results once in July, three times in August, once in September and twice in October.

Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons has also asked why the results have yet to be released.

"Once again, we have to ask why July graduation results from our two senior secondary schools still have not yet been announced by the Ministry of Education as of mid-October. We understand that a certain number of students would have been able to make up course work over the summer and will also graduate, but surely these results can be announced subsequently.

"Furthermore, student GCSE results were released in mid-September by the private secondary schools.

"Why haven't the student GCSE results also been released for the public secondary schools? This lack of transparency creates suspicion and undermines confidence in our public education system."

Dr. Gibbons continued: "Over the last few years public school graduation rates and external exam results, such as the Terra Nova tests, have either been delayed or they don't add up because the Ministry changes the basis for comparison, leaving more questions than answers for parents and the community."

Last year, graduation rates were released in mid-October. The 2008 results saw an increase of five percent compared with 2007, and the graduation rate climbed to 96 percent.

The figures were based on the performance of students enrolled in S4 at Berkeley Institute and CedarBridge Academy.

Dr. Gibbons said an independent education board might help results become public, sooner.

"We have called repeatedly for an independent advocate for parents and the public — an independent standards board that does not come under the Ministry— whose function is to analyse and then release education results in a timely way to ensure that the information is accurate, fair and consistent in its reporting.

"Parents in many other countries with first-class public education systems, such as the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and New Zealand, depend on independent education standards boards to give them unbiased results. It makes eminent good sense that those who are responsible for improving education results should not be the ones to judge whether the improvement has actually taken place.

"The Ministry has had two-and-a-half years to get this right, and the public is understandably impatient for real change and real improvement."