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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Girls rule in SEA results 

by

1261 days ago
20210910
Students tied for third place in the SEA exam, from left, Leeann James, Anya Ali, Isharra Sookdeo, Ravenna Baldeo and Aishani Ramsewak pose for a picture after receiving packages at the SEA Awards ceremony at the Ministry of Education, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

Students tied for third place in the SEA exam, from left, Leeann James, Anya Ali, Isharra Sookdeo, Ravenna Baldeo and Aishani Ramsewak pose for a picture after receiving packages at the SEA Awards ceremony at the Ministry of Education, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

 

Girls dom­i­nat­ed this year’s Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tions, tak­ing the top sev­en over­all spots, with a five-way tie for the third place.

Kirsten Ram­saran, of Rousil­lac Pres­by­ter­ian, placed first over­all, Vi­neetha Kat­ta­manchi, of Maria Regi­na Grade School, placed sec­ond and Anya Sybel­la Ali (Spe­cial­ist Learn­ing Cen­tre), Raveena Bas­deo (Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment), Sy’ria Joseph (Ari­ma Girls’ Gov­ern­ment), Ais­hani Ram­se­wak (pri­vate can­di­date) and Ishar­ra Sookdeo (Clarke Rochard Gov­ern­ment) all tied for third place.

The sev­en were among 17 stu­dents recog­nised by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion at its St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny, 12-year-old Kirsten Ram­saran said she achieved suc­cess through a healthy bal­ance of study­ing and recre­ation.

“Half of it is study­ing, half of it tak­ing breaks, you have to have some time for your­self,” she said.

Ram­saran said plac­ing first was un­ex­pect­ed but amaz­ing. She passed for her first choice school, Na­pari­ma Girls’ Col­lege and said she as­pires to be­come a lawyer.

Ram­saran said she was look­ing for­ward to at­tend­ing phys­i­cal class­es again, as she feels it will be eas­i­er to make friends in that set­ting.

Sec­ond place win­ner Vi­neetha Kat­ta­manchi, who will be at­tend­ing St Joseph’s Con­vent, said it was dif­fi­cult for her to adapt to on­line class­es.

“It was hard work con­sid­er­ing it was on­line all the time and prac­tice at home in­stead of at school, so to come on SEA day for the first time in a class­room and do the ex­am was kind of stress­ful,” Kat­ta­manchi said.

Vinceetha Kattamanchi who second placed in the SEA exam.

Vinceetha Kattamanchi who second placed in the SEA exam.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

She said she of­ten en­coun­tered is­sues with her in­ter­net con­nec­tion and she too was long­ing for a re­turn to in-per­son class­es.

Kat­ta­manchi said she was un­sure of what ca­reer path she will choose in the fu­ture.

One of the third-place win­ners, Raveena Bas­deo, was more con­fi­dent. She as­pires to be­come a jour­nal­ist and at just 12 years, she has al­ready writ­ten a book that will be pub­lished soon. Her book is ti­tled “A World of Cre­ative Writ­ing,” her moth­er, Beena Bas­deo said.

“I en­joy pub­lic speak­ing,” Raveena said when asked why she as­pires to join the me­dia fra­ter­ni­ty.

Raveena said on­line class­es were dif­fi­cult for her too, but with the as­sis­tance of a pri­vate tu­tor, she was able to pass for her first choice school, St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School.

The recog­ni­tion cer­e­mo­ny al­so in­clud­ed the top male stu­dent — Tyler Ram­roop, of El Do­ra­do Hin­du School — who placed eighth over­all.

Two pupils from spe­cial schools — Aisha Lewis from the Au­drey Jef­fers School for the Deaf and Curlan High­ley, from the Cas­cade School for the Deaf, were al­so recog­nised.

Sev­en pupils were al­so recog­nised for their im­proved aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance.

They were: Lean­na James (Va­len­cia Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry), Kahyin Young (Arou­ca Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry), Khalil David (Point Fortin AC), Tris­tan Craig (Rosary Boys’ RC), She­mar Bow­man (Wa­ter­loo Pres­by­ter­ian), Reese Charles (Robert Vil­lage Hin­du) and Melic­ka Red­head (Mara­bel­la Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry).

All 17 pupils were giv­en free broad­band-at-home ser­vices from Bmo­bile and a tablet with a da­ta sim card.

Speak­ing dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed all 19,544 stu­dents who sat this year’s ex­am.

She said her ad­vice to stu­dents was to re­ject the no­tion that the sec­ondary school they pass for will de­cide their suc­cess.

“The SEA is but one stage, an im­por­tant one yes but one of many to come. The out­come of sec­ondary school­ing has more to do with stu­dent in­put and parental sup­port than the school you at­tend­ed,” she said.

The min­is­ter said mean raw scores for the ex­am showed de­creas­es in per­for­mances in Math­e­mat­ics by six per cent, in Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts by 4.1 per cent and in writ­ing by 0.8 per cent.

“Al­so of note was that in SEA 2021, 1.4 per cent more stu­dents scored over 90 per cent than in 2020, while 6.7 per cent more stu­dents scored un­der 90 per cent and this is tak­ing note of the fact that more stu­dents wrote in 2021 than wrote in 2020,” the min­is­ter said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said while fur­ther analy­sis will be done on the re­sults, the im­pact of switch­ing to on­line learn­ing can­not be dis­count­ed as a con­tribut­ing fac­tor to the de­clines in the over­all per­for­mance of the can­di­dates.

“The con­tin­ued ab­sence from the phys­i­cal class­room as pre­dict­ed will con­tribute to a re­duc­tion in av­er­age stu­dent per­for­mance as well as widen­ing of the achieve­ment gap and not on­ly for SEA 2021 — this is part of the glob­al loss phe­nom­e­non which has been spo­ken off wide­ly. Learn­ing loss is an in­sid­i­ous dan­ger and our main de­fence against this is the open­ing of phys­i­cal school,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly again ad­vo­cat­ed for vac­ci­na­tion against COVID-19, say­ing vac­ci­na­tion presents the safest cir­cum­stance for the re­open­ing of phys­i­cal class­es.


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