Although two students of the Vicente Lachner High-School in Cartago did not turn in their Civics project, the Costa Rica Ministry of Public Education forced the teacher to give them a grade of 100.

During the second trimester of this year, the two students didn’t turn in any advances of their work or their final project, and therefore the teacher gave them a “1”; however, the mother of one of the students decided to bring an appeal to the Ministry of Education to change his son’s and his classmate’s grade.

According to the resolution of the Ministry of Education, “Recording a one (1) as a grade in this component is not applicable, unless the student didn’t comply with any of the stages of the project”. “The teacher must provide evidence that demonstrates that the project was evaluated in stages, and that he provided the appropriate support and follow-up to the students; otherwise he must provide the total points for each of the stages that were not evaluated”.

The teacher, Carlomagno Sandi, told local newspaper CRHoy: “From my point of view, this is a perfect example of what we call mediocrity. A very sensitive door is being open which is that any appeal and any mistake made by a teacher will be a possibility, a door to being awarded free points”.

The project had a value of 35% of the final grade, Sandi stated that the director of the school was in agreement with his proceeding, but the Ministry decided to revoke it without a thorough investigation, since they didn’t even communicate with Sandi.