The midnight release of the 2024 Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination results led to jubilation or disappointment for 18,177 students and their families as they accessed the Ministry of Education’s (MoE) online portal yesterday.
It is impossible to ignore the inevitable emotional highs and lows that accompany the release of school placements — it is an exercise that rivets the entire nation. In addition to the success stories of the candidates who top the exam, a major national focus in the coming days will be the analyses of the overall student performance and comparisons to results from previous years.
On Thursday, the MoE set the pace for the usual post-SEA discussions with a media release highlighting improvements in Mathematics and English Language Arts scores this year compared to last year.
Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly acknowledged “small declines in some areas and small increases in others” and declared “a steady path of recovery from the learning loss associated with the COVID-19 experience.”
She also reported better SEA performances at 80 primary schools of focus where the MoE had invested more resources to improve student performance and noted that the secondary vacation revision programme will begin at 21 centres across the country from July 15.
These efforts are commendable, as is the data-driven approach to the SEA that the ministry has adopted in recent years. This has helped education stakeholders make informed decisions about that exam.
However, these approaches are needed at every level of the education system to produce more of the confident, intelligent, prepared, responsible and engaged citizens that T&T needs.
The continuous assessment approach pursued with vigour by the ministry some years ago seems to have fallen by the wayside. These days, there is such an intense focus on passing the SEA, CSEC and CAPE examinations, that other aspects of the education system are pushed into the background.
Factors that influence performance in school, including socioeconomic status, parenting, physical and mental health and peer relationships, don’t get enough attention.
The experts say that achieving student success requires a multifaceted approach that targets academic, personal and social development but often, the approach to students who are struggling academically does not factor in the diverse needs of each learner.
That shortcoming might account for the number of primary and secondary school dropouts in this country, students who are allowed to slip through the cracks and end up being part of the social problems plaguing this country.
That is why it is so important at every level in the education system to gather and use data to identify student strengths and areas for improvement so that effective interventions can be developed and support provided.
The current system of standardised tests as a measure of student achievement focuses narrowly on academic skills and excludes social and emotional development, critical thinking, problem-solving and other important abilities.
It is time to put more emphasis on creating nurturing and inclusive classroom environments where, guided by a more comprehensive approach to academic assessments from the ministry, students have more opportunities to thrive.
In the coming days and weeks, inspirational stories will be shared about the students who beat the odds to excel academically. T&T’s educational playing field needs to be levelled so there can be many more successes like those.