An­na-Lisa Paul

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has as­sured that every­thing is in place for to­mor­row’s Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am.

She will vis­it two schools in San Juan and Port-of-Spain to­mor­row to view the prepa­ra­tions ahead of the sched­uled 8.30 am ex­am start.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing last week, Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed 19,656 stu­dents are reg­is­tered to write the ex­am which will be three hours and 20 min­utes long.

This year’s ex­am has seen a re­duc­tion in the con­tent and cur­ricu­lum cov­er­age as well as in the num­ber of items that have been placed on the pa­per.

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) had pre­vi­ous­ly voiced con­cerns re­gard­ing the health and safe­ty of mem­bers who have vol­un­teered to in­vig­i­late the ex­am.

TTUTA Pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas last week said a num­ber of peo­ple who had vol­un­teered for SEA su­per­vi­sion had on­ly re­ceived their first dose of vac­cines so far.

With the ma­jor­i­ty of them sched­uled to re­ceive the sec­ond dose this week, she said re­search had shown that not enough time would have elapsed be­tween the two dos­es be­ing ad­min­is­tered, and the req­ui­site two-week wait­ing pe­ri­od be­fore a per­son can be de­clared ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.

“TTUTA has asked for teach­ers who want­ed to have the vac­cine to be al­lowed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ac­cess it, and most teach­ers and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­fes­sion­als who want­ed it…the As­traZeneca was ad­min­is­tered to them be­cause they were deemed es­sen­tial,” Tekah-De Fre­itas said.

“We hope every­body’s health would be safe­guard­ed through that vac­ci­na­tion process,” she added.

Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) Pres­i­dent, Car­lene Hayes when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day said, “Our mem­bers are busy try­ing to get schools ready for Thurs­day’s ex­am.”

An unidentified employee of the Arima Borough Council is seen sanitizing the Arima Presbyterian Primary School, yesterday ahead tomorrow’s SEA examination.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

She added, “I have not heard of any is­sues with the in­vig­i­la­tors, but like I said be­fore…there is noth­ing hold­ing back some­one from com­ing on the morn­ing. You just have to hope and pray.”

Hayes sought to re­as­sure stu­dents and their par­ents as she said, “We will try our best to make sure the stu­dents are com­fort­able and have every­thing they need for the ex­am.”

Re­gard­ing the vac­ci­na­tion of teach­ers thus far, min­istry of­fi­cials last week said of the 4,000 vac­cines as­signed to the MoE - 3,635 teach­ers and school ad­min­is­tra­tors (prin­ci­pals and vice prin­ci­pals) have been vac­ci­nat­ed.

A fur­ther of­fer was ex­tend­ed on June 26 for an ad­di­tion­al 500 teach­ers and/or ad­min­is­tra­tors who were will­ing to vol­un­teer to su­per­vise the SEA 2021 to be vac­ci­nat­ed.

Stu­dents will be test­ed in the ar­eas of Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts Writ­ing (50 min­utes); Math­e­mat­ics (75 min­utes); and Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts (75 min­utes) – with a 30-minute break.

An analy­sis of this year’s fig­ures show more males are reg­is­tered to write the ex­am at 9,905; as op­posed to 9,751 fe­males.

The co­hort of stu­dents writ­ing the SEA ex­am in To­ba­go stands at 1,064; while 18,592 stu­dents are reg­is­tered in Trinidad.

A to­tal of 553 ex­am­i­na­tion cen­tres will be in use, while 445 con­ces­sions have been grant­ed to spe­cial needs stu­dents.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3,919 su­per­vi­so­ry staff have been as­signed to schools, com­prised main­ly of teach­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors to­tal­ing 3,735.

The ex­am scripts are to be de­liv­ered to 24 dis­tri­b­u­tion points on the morn­ing of Ju­ly 1, fol­low­ing which as­sess­ment su­per­vi­sors can ac­cess their re­spec­tive school pack­ages.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 183 de­fer­ral ap­pli­ca­tions were re­ceived, of which 176 have been grant­ed.

Stu­dents who will at­tain the age of 15 be­fore Sep­tem­ber 1, 2021, were not el­i­gi­ble for de­fer­ral and where the re­quest for de­fer­ral was not grant­ed, the main rea­son cit­ed was a lack of phys­i­cal space.

The Na­tion­al School Di­etary Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (NS­D­SL) will pro­vide a snack for the stu­dents to­mor­row.

Stu­dents are re­quired to wear face masks dur­ing the ex­am and will be seat­ed six feet apart.