Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers are op­ti­mistic about the chances of suc­cess for the 18,889 pupils (9,591 males and 9,289 feam­les) reg­is­tered to sit to­day’s Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am.

This is be­cause stake­hold­ers say they are the first batch pupils who were able to ben­e­fit from a full aca­d­e­m­ic year of face-to-face class­es since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic be­gan in 2020.

Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools’ Prin­ci­pal As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Car­lene Hayes said yes­ter­day that re­turn to in-per­son class­es al­lowed teach­ers a bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress any learn­ing loss from the pupils’ time spent on­line dur­ing the sus­pen­sion of in-per­son class­es at the height of the pan­dem­ic.

“Be­cause of this, we are a bit more op­ti­mistic and a bit more con­fi­dent that these chil­dren would have been able to be pre­pared more than last year’s stu­dents for the ex­am­i­na­tion. The gaps were re­al in terms of on­line school­ing was not ben­e­fi­cial to our stu­dents,” Hayes said.

Last year, 52 per cent of pupils scored less than 50 per cent in the ex­ams. This meant more than half of them failed the ex­am, forc­ing the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to spend $10 mil­lion on re­me­di­al class­es.

Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Kevin David mean­while de­scribed the re­turn to phys­i­cal class­es as be­ing “crit­i­cal” to build­ing the pupils up for the ex­am.

While phys­i­cal class­es were pre­ferred by all the ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers Guardian Me­dia spoke to, Con­cerned Par­ents’ Move­ment pres­i­dent Clarence Men­doza said on­line learn­ing could still prove use­ful, but as a sup­ple­ment for ex­tra lessons.

T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin was al­so op­ti­mistic about how pupils would per­form this year. How­ev­er, he re­it­er­at­ed that the SEA ex­am needs re­struc­tur­ing. In its cur­rent form, he said it places too much un­due stress on pupils, par­ents and even teach­ers.

“It is time that we se­ri­ous­ly look at this high-stake place­ment ex­am­i­na­tion and look at a sys­tem that would be fair and eq­ui­table to all our stu­dents, no mat­ter the learn­ing abil­i­ty,” he said.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so of­fered words of en­cour­age­ment to the stu­dents in a video mes­sage post­ed to her Tik­Tok ac­count yes­ter­day.

“To the stu­dents, I say this is not the end. This is the start of your new jour­ney in­to sec­ondary school and we at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion look for­ward to sup­port­ing your jour­ney in ed­u­ca­tion,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

“So just go out there and do your best. That’s all we can ask of you. That’s all we ex­pect. Your best is good enough. God bless you as you make this tran­si­tion for your SEA ex­am­i­na­tion.”

Al­so wish­ing pupils well for the ex­am was Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. In a video post­ed to so­cial me­dia, she re­mind­ed pupils to take care of them­selves and trust in God.

“As you go in­to the hall, say your prayer, keep strong, go with God and you will do your best. I wish you all God’s bless­ings,” she said.

Ex­am tips

Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gist Hay­ley Pan­choo says re­main­ing calm is the key to suc­cess in the SEA test.

She of­fered the fol­low­ing tips that pupils sit­ting SEA can do while in the ex­am room should they feel ner­vous.

A count­ing breath: This is a sim­ple breath­ing ex­er­cise which can help calm your mind. To do it, you in­hale for three counts, hold for three counts and ex­hale for six counts.

But­ter­fly hug: This re­quires cross­ing your arms across your chest, plac­ing your left hand on your right shoul­der and your right arm on your left. Pan­choo ex­plained that by giv­ing your shoul­ders light taps, it’s es­sen­tial­ly giv­ing your­self a hug.

“It ac­tu­al­ly helps cre­ate a slight in­te­gra­tion and a lev­el of calm and a lev­el of ground­ed­ness. It helps the child to feel more se­cure,” she said.

She said this is a favoured tech­nique for chil­dren who strug­gle with anx­i­ety.

Five sens­es ex­er­cise: Pan­choo said this sim­ply re­quires you to point out things in the room that ap­peal to each of your sens­es. She said this can be done silent­ly in your head.

“It re­al­ly helps to dis­tract the per­son from a pos­si­ble spi­ral of thoughts or a pos­si­ble pat­tern of thoughts and it helps to re­ori­ent them­selves to the present mo­ment to feel­ing more ground­ed, to feel­ing more calm by ap­peal­ing to those five sens­es,” she said.