Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter months and even years of prepa­ra­tion, stu­dents, par­ents, and teach­ers are plac­ing their faith in God and their ef­forts as they ea­ger­ly await Wednes­day’s Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment.

It’s one of the most sig­nif­i­cant tests in a pupil’s aca­d­e­m­ic ca­reer.

It’s al­so why it’s not sur­pris­ing why an un­doubt­ed ma­jor­i­ty turn to­wards the Almighty for guid­ance in the ex­am.

In this light, the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion, in Port-of-Spain, host­ed mass for Stan­dard Five pupils of the Sa­cred Heart Boys’, Sa­cred Heart Girls’, Beth­le­hem Boys’, Beth­le­hem Girls’, Nel­son Street Boys’ and Nel­son Street Girls’ Pri­ma­ry Schools on Mon­day.

The pupils, par­ents and teach­ers all gath­er in a morn­ing of de­vo­tion and wor­ship, per­haps em­body­ing the be­lief that they can do all things through Christ who strength­ens them. That’s why 12-year-old Sa­cred Heart Girls’ RC School, Tes­sane John, said she is con­fi­dent go­ing in­to Wednes­day's ex­am.

“I feel ex­cit­ed be­cause all the prepa­ra­tions we have made lead­ing up to this mo­ment—I just want to go in the ex­am and do my best. I’m not wor­ried. I be­lieve I can pass for the school of my choice,” she said.

It was a sim­i­lar sen­ti­ment shared by an­oth­er Stan­dard Five pupil, Dionte Ali, who told Guardian Me­dia he was “pumped” for the ex­am.

While he was con­fi­dent, his fa­ther, Safraz, may have held the young­sters anx­i­ety with­in him.

“I might be a lit­tle bit more ner­vous than he is but I’m glad that he’s con­fi­dent, so I’m pret­ty hap­py about that,” he said.

“You know, par­ents will al­ways be a lil bit more con­cerned about kids than they are about them­selves.”

Head of the Stan­dard Five De­part­ment of the Sa­cred Heart Girls’ School, Rose Bho­la, said the teach­ers were con­fi­dent in their stu­dents’ abil­i­ties af­ter putting in all the work.

“Par­ents have al­so sac­ri­ficed, so we are con­fi­dent. Our girls al­ways do well,” she said.

De­spite the con­fi­dence of suc­cess in this year’s ex­am­i­na­tion, Fa­ther Mar­tin Sir­ju told pupils in his Homi­ly that re­gard­less of which school they en­ter, they will all be equal—none bet­ter than the oth­er.

“We must all be in the busi­ness of pre­serv­ing the dig­ni­ty of oth­ers. It does not mat­ter if you come from West­moor­ings or you come from Laven­tille Hill. Peo­ple’s dig­ni­ty must be pre­served,” he said.

“It does not mat­ter if you pass for schools that are called the top schools or you pass for schools that are looked up­on as av­er­age lev­el, you still have the same dig­ni­ty as some­one,” he said.