The Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy is dis­miss­ing claims that SEA ex­ams in To­ba­go were de­layed due to miss­ing clocks.

In a state­ment, the Di­vi­sion as­sured that all 40 ex­am cen­tres were ful­ly equipped and start­ed on time. It re­spond­ed di­rect­ly to a vi­ral video by PNM To­ba­go West Can­di­date Sham­fa Cud­joe, who said par­ents con­tact­ed her in dis­tress, claim­ing their chil­dren with spe­cial con­ces­sions could not be­gin the test due to the ab­sence of clocks.

“I want to bring to the at­ten­tion of con­stituents and more so, the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion in To­ba­go a very, very se­ri­ous con­cern,” Cud­joe said. “This morn­ing, I’m be­ing called by par­ents who are an­noyed. This morn­ing is SEA in To­ba­go, and chil­dren are be­ing told, no clocks, no ex­am. Par­ents are be­ing told, no clocks, no ex­am.”

She added, “Chil­dren on con­ces­sion…be­cause their par­ents would have got­ten ap­proval to al­low them to be test­ed sep­a­rate­ly and un­der spe­cial con­di­tions…to­day in To­ba­go, we have the prob­lem of par­ents show­ing up with their chil­dren to set­tle them in for ex­ams, and they don’t have enough clocks.”

But the di­vi­sion in­sists every trained in­vig­i­la­tor had a time­keep­ing de­vice, and all can­di­dates—in­clud­ing 29 ap­proved for spe­cial con­di­tions—be­gan on sched­ule.

“All ex­am­i­na­tion cen­tres were ful­ly equipped ahead of the sched­uled start time. Each trained in­vig­i­la­tor was pro­vid­ed with time­keep­ing de­vices to en­sure ac­cu­rate mon­i­tor­ing of the ex­am,” the Di­vi­sion stat­ed. “There were no re­port­ed de­lays in the com­mence­ment of the ex­am­i­na­tion.”

The Di­vi­sion said strict pro­to­cols were fol­lowed af­ter a full-scale train­ing. “To en­sure smooth and stan­dard­ised op­er­a­tions on ex­am­i­na­tion day, the Di­vi­sion host­ed a com­pre­hen­sive train­ing ex­er­cise for SEA per­son­nel at the Shaw Park Com­plex on Thurs­day, 3 April,” it said. “Clear pro­to­cols were is­sued to en­sure con­sis­ten­cy and pro­fes­sion­al­ism at all cen­tres.”

It al­so said that all spe­cial ac­com­mo­da­tions were han­dled with care: “For can­di­dates with ap­proved spe­cial con­ces­sions, such as ex­tra time, the start of their ex­am was al­so aligned with the na­tion­al sched­ule. Their ad­just­ed end times re­flect the ac­com­mo­da­tions grant­ed and are su­per­vised in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished guide­lines.”

In To­ba­go, 1,006 stu­dents—in­clud­ing 34 pri­vate can­di­dates—from 39 pri­ma­ry schools are sit­ting the 2025 SEA ex­am across 40 ex­am­i­na­tion cen­tres.

“We urge the pub­lic to re­main calm and trust that the in­tegri­ty of the SEA ex­am­i­na­tion process re­mains in­tact,” the di­vi­sion said.