Af­ter months of an­tic­i­pa­tion, a to­tal of 18,177 stu­dents who sat the 2024 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion, now know which sec­ondary school they will be at­tend­ing come Sep­tem­ber.

As the clock struck mid­night last night, the SEA re­sults were made avail­able via the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s on­line por­tal and based on the re­sults, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly be­lieves T&T is on a steady path of re­cov­ery from the learn­ing loss as­so­ci­at­ed with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the min­istry an­nounced that there had been an im­prove­ment in stu­dent per­for­mance for both the Math­e­mat­ics and Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts writ­ing scores this year com­pared to that of last year.

The min­istry said this year’s mean Math­e­mat­ics score was 50.7 per cent, as com­pared to 50.4 per cent in 2023.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the mean Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts Writ­ing score was 59, in com­par­i­son to 53.4 per cent in 2023
How­ev­er, the mean Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts score dropped to 53.4 per cent in com­par­i­son to 61.6 per cent in 2023.

There was a slight de­cline in the over­all scores of stu­dents in this year’s ex­am­i­na­tion.

In an analy­sis of the grades, the min­istry re­port­ed that 57.9 per cent of stu­dents scored 50 per cent and above this year. Last year, 58.06 stu­dents scored over 50 per cent.
Ad­di­tion­al­ly, in 50 per cent of the 80 pri­ma­ry schools of fo­cus, there has been an in­crease in the av­er­age weight­ed score of the stu­dents.

Al­so, in 45 per cent of those schools, there was a de­cline in the per­cent­age of stu­dents scor­ing 30 per cent and low­er in SEA.

The min­istry said this adds cre­dence to the ef­forts of the Re­me­di­al Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme of the min­istry, which has been ap­proved to con­tin­ue in both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools of fo­cus un­til 2025/26.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “The SEA 2024 re­sults have shown a gen­er­al sta­bil­i­ty when com­pared with those of 2023, with small de­clines in some ar­eas and small in­creas­es in oth­ers.

“This in­di­cates that we are on a steady path of re­cov­ery from the learn­ing loss as­so­ci­at­ed with the COVID-19 ex­pe­ri­ence.

“No­table is the lev­el of im­prove­ment in SEA per­for­mance at the 80 Pri­ma­ry Schools of Fo­cus. We have been in­vest­ing more re­sources in these schools, and the im­prove­ment is a val­i­da­tion of those ef­forts, which will con­tin­ue for the next two aca­d­e­m­ic years.”

The min­is­ter ad­vised all par­ents of stu­dents en­ter­ing form one in Sep­tem­ber, that the sec­ondary va­ca­tion re­vi­sion pro­gramme, which takes place at 21 cen­tres across Trinidad, be­gins on Ju­ly 15.

A look at the sta­tis­tics

Mean Raw Score

Year Math­e­mat­ics Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts Writ­ing

2024 50.7 53.5 59

2023 50.4 61.6 53.4

2022 41.9 44.4 44.3

Year Above 90% Above 50% 30% or be­low

2024 1.42 57.91 14.39

2023 2.11 58.06 13.55

2022 0.47 37.06 27.81