An­na-Lisa Paul

Of­fi­cials at schools in east and north Trinidad said they were pleased and gen­er­al­ly sat­is­fied with this year's Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) re­sults.How­ev­er, there were con­cerns from se­lect­ed prin­ci­pals, teach­ers and par­ents that some stu­dents who did not at­tain a place­ment of choice were be­ing zoned and placed in schools they had nev­er even heard off.

At Mar­aval Boys RC School, par­ents and stu­dents ex­pressed a gen­er­al sense of sat­is­fac­tion with the re­sults.With 51 stu­dents hav­ing writ­ten the ex­am, on­ly one par­ent in­di­cat­ed that they would be seek­ing a trans­fer for their child, while some oth­ers were up­set af­ter learn­ing their chil­dren had been zoned.

This, how­ev­er, did not af­fect the cel­e­bra­tions by the re­main­ing stu­dents who were over­joyed by their re­sults.At Rich­mond Street Boys' An­gli­can School, 48 pupils wrote the ex­am, with the ma­jor­i­ty se­cur­ing places at a school of choice.Though pleased, school of­fi­cials were dis­ap­point­ed that some stu­dents were zoned and in­di­cat­ed that some par­ents had al­ready ex­pressed a de­sire to query their chil­dren's re­sults.

At Curepe Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School, it was the op­po­site as par­ents and stu­dents con­grat­u­lat­ed one an­oth­er up­on learn­ing of the re­sults.Smiles, tears and hugs were plen­ti­ful among those who had gath­ered to hear the re­sults an­nounced be­fore the school's pop­u­la­tion.De­scrib­ing this year's re­sults as "one of the bet­ter years," of­fi­cials were hap­py that the ma­jor­i­ty of the 117 stu­dents who wrote the ex­am had at­tained their first choice place­ments.

Asked what fac­tors would have con­tributed to the high suc­cess rate be­ing en­joyed, of­fi­cials de­clined to name one spe­cif­ic thing, ex­cept to high­light that through­out the aca­d­e­m­ic process they had main­tained ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties for the stu­dents, which pro­vid­ed a bal­anced and holis­tic ap­proach.They al­so cit­ed a very sup­port­ive parental net­work as a key fac­tor in the stu­dents' achieve­ments.

Teach­ers in­di­cat­ed that in prepa­ra­tion for the ex­am, they al­so com­plet­ed past pa­pers from 2004 through to 2014, and even in­clud­ed as­pects of the syl­labus that had not been ear­marked to be taught to the stu­dents.At Spring Vil­lage Hin­du School, school of­fi­cials were elat­ed with the achieve­ments of the 16 pupils who wrote the ex­am.

Thir­teen of the 16 pupils se­cured places in sev­en-year sec­ondary schools, while three oth­ers were as­signed to five-year in­sti­tu­tions.Elat­ed over the re­sults, the par­ents praised the ef­forts of the school's ad­min­is­tra­tor and teach­ers in achiev­ing this suc­cess.One par­ent who asked not to be named said, "This suc­cess was made pos­si­ble through the ef­forts of every­one in­clud­ing the prin­ci­pal, teach­ers, par­ents and stu­dents, who put every­thing in­to en­sur­ing that the work was done."

At Curepe Fa­ti­ma RC School, there were many long faces as both par­ents and teach­ers ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with the re­sults.Up­set teach­ers and par­ents blamed the min­istry for zon­ing pupils, say­ing that even though some stu­dents had at­tained "pret­ty good scores," it was not good enough to get them in­to a school of choice.

In­stead, the ma­jor­i­ty of stu­dents were as­signed to Barataria North and South Sec­ondary Schools, while sev­er­al oth­ers were sent to Life Cen­tres, where they will be taught a skill or trade.Sim­i­lar pic­tures emerged from the Curepe An­gli­can and Curepe Vedic Schools, as of­fi­cials at both places in­di­cat­ed the re­sults were "av­er­age with pre­vi­ous years."

At Curepe An­gli­can, one teacher ex­plained, "Those who ex­pect­ed to do well, did well."The teacher at­trib­uted the stu­dents' per­for­mance to the cal­i­bre of stu­dents now en­ter­ing the school sys­tem.She said the lack of parental sup­port, ab­sence of ded­i­ca­tion to stud­ies and stu­dent com­pla­cen­cy were now hav­ing a neg­a­tive ef­fect on the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem and were re­flect­ed in the poor re­sults gen­er­al­ly.

At Sa­cred Heart Boys' RC School, of­fi­cials said they were hap­py with the re­sults as 86 per cent of the stu­dents had passed for a sev­en-year school, while the re­main­der were as­signed to five-year schools.At Sa­cred Heart Girls' RC School, 100 stu­dents wrote the ex­am, with 70 per cent of the stu­dents pass­ing for their first choice school. Of­fi­cials at Rose Hill RC School al­so ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the re­sults.

How­ev­er, many par­ents were up­set that their chil­dren had been zoned.Many of the of­fi­cials in­ter­viewed yes­ter­day called for a re­view of the Con­tin­u­ous As­sess­ment Com­po­nent (CAC), which con­tributed 30 per cent of a stu­dent's over­all score.

Top per­form­ers:

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce the top 200 stu­dents to­day at the post-cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

Fol­low­ing his an­nounce­ment, of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said, the list would be post­ed to their web­site, from which prin­ci­pals, teach­ers, par­ents and stu­dents can ac­cess fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.