Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby Dolly says she expects better results in this year’s Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam.
Last year’s results were some of the worst in the history of the exam. The minister at the time blamed virtual learning. She said with the return to in-person classes and the hard work teachers have been putting in, the results should improve.
“What I can tell you is that teachers have been working very hard. Their students are physical now which makes a huge difference in terms of exam preparation” she said.
She said several schools have added after school programmes to assist in filling the gap created by the time away from school.
“So we would anticipate that our teachers would be able to prepare our students better so we’ll see what the results bring,” the minister added.
Out of the 19,079 pupils---51 per cent male and 49 per cent female---who wrote last year’s examination, the average score for Mathematics was 41.9 per cent, in English Language Arts 44.3 per cent and in English Language Arts Writing 44.39 per cent.
This year’s SEA is scheduled for March 29.
On the issue of school violence, Gadsby-Dolly said municipal police officers will continue to be employed to prevent loitering after schools.
She said the TTPS are more visible in and around schools encouraging students to join youth clubs as a way to steer out of trouble but the municipal police will be used to get children off the streets and into their homes.
“You would have seen a lot of fights move into the road and the indiscipline move into the road because the students are better monitored at the schools,” Gadsby Dolly said.
