An­na-Lisa Paul

The end of yes­ter­day’s Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am prompt­ed a col­lec­tive sigh of re­lief from teach­ers and par­ents as pupils ex­it­ed ex­am rooms yes­ter­day.

As al­most two years of on­line teach­ing and learn­ing cul­mi­nat­ed in the three hours and 20 minute-long ex­am—many pupils ad­mit­ted to be­ing over­whelm­ing­ly grate­ful that the life-chang­ing ex­am was now over.

In an up­date al­most two hours af­ter the ex­am, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, said, “Af­ter mon­i­tor­ing the day’s op­er­a­tions, I am hap­py to re­port that the ex­am­i­na­tion was im­ple­ment­ed with­out any ma­jor dis­rup­tions.”

The min­istry con­firmed 19,189 stu­dents reg­is­tered to write the ex­am but 193 in Trinidad did not write it as sched­uled yes­ter­day.

In a re­lease, the min­istry added, “Re­ports from prin­ci­pals in­di­cate that 44 of those can­di­dates were ab­sent due to COVID-19-re­lat­ed rea­sons.”

De­spite this, they as­sured that stu­dents who reg­is­tered but were not able to write the ex­am will be al­lowed to sit the make-up ex­am on April 21.

A to­tal of 9,901 males and 9,288 fe­males reg­is­tered to write the ex­am over­all—with 18,212 can­di­dates in Trinidad and 986 can­di­dates in To­ba­go. They were test­ed in Maths, Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts and Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts Writ­ing.

The ex­am be­gan prompt­ly at 8.30 am at 552 ex­am cen­tres. Con­ces­sions were grant­ed to 440 stu­dents this year. These can­di­dates were af­ford­ed con­ces­sions such as ex­tra time, sign lan­guage in­ter­pre­ta­tion, large print or Braille scripts, pref­er­en­tial seat­ing and pro­vi­sion of a writer or read­er among oth­er forms of aca­d­e­m­ic sup­port.

In thank­ing the 3,400 staff and ex­ter­nal stake­hold­ers who played a role in the suc­cess­ful con­duct of the ex­am yes­ter­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “The task to suc­cess­ful­ly man­age 552 cen­tres for the SEA Ex­am­i­na­tion is mam­moth. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is ex­treme­ly grate­ful for the sup­port re­ceived from our stu­dents, par­ents, prin­ci­pals, teach­ers, in­vig­i­la­tors, sup­port and jan­i­to­r­i­al staff, se­cu­ri­ty staff, school su­per­vi­sors, staff of the DERE, Ex­am­i­na­tion and Cur­ricu­lum Di­vi­sions and oth­er MoE staff, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), MTS and oth­er agen­cies.”

The said the re­sults of the SEA 2022 will be avail­able for col­lec­tion dur­ing the first week of Ju­ly.

De­scrib­ing the ex­am as “man­age­able” min­utes af­ter she ex­it­ed the Sa­cred Heart Girls’ RC School in Port-of-Spain, Alyssa Be­na­cia, 11, said, “I think I did good but I don’t think I will get to­tal be­cause of two of the ques­tions in Maths.”

Not­ing that a cer­tain top­ic was fea­tured in the ques­tions which she had not cov­ered dur­ing the teach­ing syl­labus, Be­na­cia said she was re­lieved the COVID re­stric­tions are be­ing lift­ed in time for the new aca­d­e­m­ic year in Sep­tem­ber but at the same time, she was con­cerned about, “the chil­dren be­ing close to­geth­er as they could get sick.”

Be­na­cia said she is look­ing for­ward to un­wind­ing dur­ing the va­ca­tion break and is hop­ing for a trip to To­ba­go and a spe­cial din­ner at a restau­rant.

Be­na­cia is hop­ing to pass for her first choice Holy Name Con­vent in Port-of-Spain.

Za­yne Mo­hammed, 11, of Spring Vil­lage Hin­du School, said, “I left out one or two sums but I man­aged.”

Be­liev­ing he had been spend­ing too much time on the ques­tions that had proven con­fus­ing for him, the Curepe stu­dent said his va­ca­tion plans in­clude “play­ing games and build­ing up my new bike.”

Mo­hammed’s first choice school is Hillview Col­lege in Tu­na­puna.

Kerdel Clarke said the ex­am wasn’t “too hard, but sim­ple.”

The 12-year-old stu­dent of Jern­ing­ham Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School said he was ad­e­quate­ly pre­pared for the ex­am, de­spite hav­ing spent the last two years pri­mar­i­ly en­gaged in on­line learn­ing.

Anx­ious­ly look­ing for­ward to re­sum­ing swim­ming and gam­ing, Clarke hopes to pass for his first choice school of Hillview Col­lege.