SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Pupils in north and south Trinidad who wrote the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion say they are look­ing for­ward to the next chap­ter of their lives as sec­ondary school stu­dents. They would have re­ceived their re­sults via the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s SEA por­tal.

Yes­ter­day, pupils were cel­e­brat­ing all across the coun­try at schools and places like Movi­eTowne, among them a group of pupils at Debe Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School.

It was a joy­ous at­mos­phere with pupils singing, laugh­ing and jump­ing for joy, hav­ing re­ceived their re­sults. 

“The school did re­al­ly, re­al­ly well,” a school of­fi­cial boast­ed. She said 61 pupils wrote the ex­am and were all pleased with their re­sults. 

Sur­round­ed by her par­ents Rod­ney and Ria Ar­joon­s­ingh, Rylee Ar­joon­s­ingh said she was proud and hap­py to pass for AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege.

“I put in the hard work and stayed up late at night to achieve this mo­ment,” Rylee said.

Her fa­ther said it was one of the proud­est mo­ments in his life, and he thanked the teach­ers for all their hard work and sup­port.

Mean­while, it was a dou­ble cel­e­bra­tion for twin sis­ters Laris­sa and Leah Sama­roo who were with their par­ents, Lystra and Ricky Sama­roo. Come Sep­tem­ber the sis­ters will both be at­tend­ing Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School. Their moth­er said the prepa­ra­tion for SEA was a lot, but her daugh­ters worked as a team.

“With SEA, it’s an ef­fort with the teacher, the par­ents, the chil­dren. If the chil­dren don’t have the sup­port at home, it is hard­er for them; if they can­not af­ford ex­tra lessons, it is hard­er for them. It takes the teacher, prin­ci­pal, and par­ents to come to­geth­er to get such amaz­ing re­sults,” she said.

The sis­ters’ class­mate Ethan Ramb­harose was over­joyed that he passed for his first choice, Na­pari­ma Col­lege.

“Hon­est­ly, I am very hap­py to be grad­u­at­ing. I am re­lieved I passed for my first choice. With the sup­port of all my teach­ers and staff, they helped me ... I was prepar­ing for this since first year and I man­aged to do it with some ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties,” Ethan said proud­ly. 

Emerg­ing as the top pupil in his school, San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry’s Muhammed Fy­zo­ol said he was elat­ed when he got the re­sults on Thurs­day night.

“I jumped for joy. I was so hap­py,” said Muhammed, who was ac­com­pa­nied by his par­ents Farah and Javed and his two sis­ters.   

Muhammed’s moth­er said they were over­joyed and in­cred­i­bly proud of their son.

Of­fi­cials at TMP Pri­ma­ry said 40 per cent of the pupils there passed for their first and sec­ond choic­es. No pupil there scored un­der 50 per cent. There was al­so an im­prove­ment in Math­e­mat­ics and Cre­ative Writ­ing marks.

De­scrib­ing her re­sults as amaz­ing, Gabriel­la Williams is ex­cit­ed about at­tend­ing St Joseph’s Con­vent when school opens. Thank­ing God, her fam­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly her grand­moth­er, teach­ers and prin­ci­pal for their sup­port, she said she made a lot of sac­ri­fices.

Gabriel­la, who was ac­com­pa­nied by her par­ents, Nick and Tracey, ad­vised oth­er pupils, “Put God first and re­al­ly work hard be­cause it will pay off.”

At Movi­eTowne in Port-of-Spain, Kahi­ra McK­night was cel­e­brat­ing with her school friends from Nel­son Street Girls’ RC School. She will be head­ing to Bel­mont Sec­ondary School.

“I think I did great. I will like to thank my teacher. She helped me through a lot of stuff,” said Kahi­ra.

Jha­reel De Coteau, a pupil of St Mary’s Mu­cu­rapo Boys’ RC said he was look­ing for­ward to sec­ondary school life at Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary School.

“Sports and more ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, and I want to do good in the next five years of my life in sec­ondary school,” he said.

A to­tal of 18,177 pupils wrote this year’s SEA ex­am.