Africa-Press – Cape verde. Parents, guardians and schools, participants of the National Reading Contest complain about the “intransparency” in the National Reading Contest, already in the final stretch. The controversy involves the 15 selected in the pre-selection written test who moved on to the video test. In turn, the coordinator of the National Reading Plan (PNL) says that “the regulation is clear” and that “it is natural that all participants want to win”.
Parents and guardians complain of “some lack of transparency” in the National Reading Contest that has been running since January of this year, in primary and secondary schools in the country, within the scope of the National Reading Plan, an initiative of the Ministry of Culture and Creative Industries and the National Library Institute.
To A NAÇÃO online, Carla Alves said that after her daughter (6th grade) passed the pre-selection written test, held last Friday, the 26th, she then proceeded to the video test.
“Selected candidates would have to send a video recommending their preferred book, following all the recommended procedures and criteria. This video would then be published and submitted to public voting. We send the video in a timely manner and follow all the criteria. However, it was not published”, he explains.
According to her, it was not clarified that there would be a jury to evaluate the video before being published and another problem is that “the videos were published on Saturday, 27th, and only today, Monday, 29th, did they publish the list of students selected in the writing test”.
lack of transparency
Claiming that there is a lack of transparency in the final of the competition, Carla points out a disagreement in the list published by those responsible for the competition.
“In the list of 15 students who passed the writing test, there is no name of one of the competitors who, however, has a video published. If this student did not pass this test, how can he be in the final?”. Question.
Deleted without justification
In turn, the teacher who accompanied the student (Carla’s daughter) advanced that the dissatisfaction is more in the sense of justifying why the video was eliminated since they followed all the criteria.
“We were unhappy with this deletion as we were not given any justification as to why the video was not selected. Our competitor has a good argument, good diction, articulation and pronunciation, the most important aspects according to the regulation”, he stresses.
Unanswered questions
Without claiming “lack of transparency”, a Portuguese teacher whose student from her school was also eliminated says that there are some issues to be clarified.
“I cannot claim a lack of transparency, but when there is disagreement between the lists published by those responsible for the competition, it means that there are questions to be clarified”.
Among other issues, our interviewees advanced that “even the links of those that were selected were launched for the public vote in an uneven way”.
For the “restitution of legality” they suggest the suspension of the videos published on the 27th of May, the cancellation of the public vote and a new publication and vote to select the 3 finalists at the end of the contest.
“The regulation is clear” – says the NLP coordinator
In turn, contacted by A NAÇÃO, the coordinator of the National Reading Plan (PNLCV), Odete Almeida, said that the regulation “clearly states” that the video would undergo an evaluation by the jury.
“You can read in ‘D.2 Video Test’ that: ‘The videos submitted (a total of 150) will be submitted to a pre-selection by a Jury to select 5 finalists for each level of education. The jury of the video test is made up of 3 elements, among them, 1 representative of the PNL, 1 representative of the DBE and 1 guest of recognized merit in the audiovisual area’. Before complaining, people have to read the regulation”, he explains.
Therefore, Odete Almeida guarantees that “there were no intransparencies” underlining that “it is natural that everyone wants to win”.
Technical failures in voting
The coordinator of the contest under the National Reading Plan acknowledged, however, that the publication dates of the videos and technical failures in the links where the public should vote were changed.
Regarding these aspects, he states that the problems are already being solved.
“The problems in the links are already being solved and even the people with the most votes noticed this problem and asked for a resolution so that the contest is as transparent as possible”, he ended.
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