KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

For more than 17,000 stu­dents who wrote the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA), yes­ter­day was not about text­books or re­vi­sion, but cel­e­bra­tion.

Ex­cite­ment filled malls and restau­rants as chil­dren, their faces beam­ing with pride and re­lief, spent the day with fam­i­ly and friends af­ter learn­ing which sec­ondary schools they would at­tend.

In South Trinidad, the mood at C3 Cen­tre in San Fer­nan­do was one of qui­et ju­bi­la­tion. Chil­dren dressed in their ca­su­al best strolled through the mall, some al­ready armed with book­lists and reg­is­tra­tion in­for­ma­tion col­lect­ed from their new schools.

Among those cel­e­brat­ing was Varen Roodals­ingh, a Ca­paro RC Pri­ma­ry School stu­dent, who se­cured his first choice, Na­pari­ma Col­lege.

Af­ter vis­it­ing the school with his moth­er to col­lect reg­is­tra­tion in­for­ma­tion, they head­ed to the mall.

“I feel like ju­bi­la­tion is con­sum­ing me a lot, so, like, I am very, very hap­py, and I am very hap­py for my friends,” he said.

The cel­e­bra­tions were made even sweet­er af­ter he met one of his friends, Valmik­ki Roopc­hand, who will al­so at­tend Na­pari­ma Col­lege.

Know­ing there will be fa­mil­iar faces when school opens has eased the tran­si­tion.

Valmik­ki, of the Prana­va Ed­u­ca­tion­al In­sti­tute, re­flect­ed on the anx­ious wait for re­sults.

“I feel very re­lieved that I got my first choice, which was very ex­cit­ing be­cause I worked hard for it.”

Now count­ing down to reg­is­tra­tion and his first day at sec­ondary school, Valmik­ki said he was hap­py that sev­er­al of his friends would be join­ing him.

New Grant Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School stu­dent Ray­lan Ram­dath, who was placed at Princes Town West Sec­ondary School, spent the af­ter­noon with his grand­par­ents af­ter check­ing his re­sults on­line.

His grand­fa­ther, Tara­dath Ram­dath, said ac­cess­ing the re­sults on­line was straight­for­ward and de­scribed the day as a re­lief af­ter the ten­sion sur­round­ing the ex­am­i­na­tion.

For To­bag­on­ian Chael Breb­nor, the cel­e­bra­tions came away from home. The Scar­bor­ough RC Pri­ma­ry School stu­dent was al­ready in Trinidad for a foot­ball com­pe­ti­tion when the re­sults were re­leased. His fam­i­ly’s ex­cite­ment grew af­ter he se­cured his first choice, Bish­op’s High School, To­ba­go. Be­fore re­turn­ing to Movi­eTowne to watch Toy Sto­ry 5, they were search­ing for a cel­e­bra­to­ry meal.

While Chael looked for­ward to en­joy­ing his va­ca­tion, his moth­er, Coleen Breb­nor, re­flect­ed on the emo­tion­al jour­ney fam­i­lies ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing SEA prepa­ra­tion.

She urged par­ents whose chil­dren may not have achieved the re­sults they hoped for to con­tin­ue be­liev­ing in them.

As the af­ter­noon wore on, more fam­i­lies drift­ed through Gulf City, South Park and C3 Cen­tre, trad­ing ex­am­i­na­tion anx­i­ety for movies, meals and laugh­ter.