RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Poor re­sults in the 2022 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tions bear proof that face-to-face learn­ing can nev­er be re­placed says the school su­per­vi­sor for the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry An­tho­ny Ran­jit.

Speak­ing at the Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry Schools Board of Ed­u­ca­tion Awards func­tion held at the Susamachar Pres­by­ter­ian Church last Sat­ur­day, Ran­jit said out of 19,079 pupils who wrote the ex­am­i­na­tions close to 12,000 stu­dents scored less than 50 per cent.

He said a mere 90 pupils out of 19,070 scored over 90 per cent. Out of these 90 pupils, 17 came from Pres­by­ter­ian schools.

Say­ing the pan­dem­ic was chal­leng­ing, Ran­jit laud­ed the top SEA per­form­ers for over­com­ing chal­lenges.

He said the min­istry has start­ed rolling out fresh poli­cies to deal with the gaps in learn­ing caused by the pan­dem­ic.

“We can­not re­place face-to-face learn­ing, hence the rea­son that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is in­sist­ing on face-to-face class­es. When we do sta­tis­tics on Min­istry of Health where men­tal health is con­cerned, that is an­oth­er sta­tis­tic that bears cre­dence to the fact that noth­ing can re­place face-to-face,” he said.

Ran­jit said the min­istry has been do­ing di­ag­nos­tic test­ing to as­sess learn­ing gaps.

“We did a va­ca­tion re­me­di­al pro­gramme cater­ing for 9,000 stu­dents but un­for­tu­nate­ly we did not have that num­ber. Go­ing for­ward, the Min­is­ter is look­ing to man­date this for stu­dents who score less than 50 per cent,” he added.

Ran­jit al­so said prin­ci­pals can now ad­just their scope of work to suit the needs of pupils.

“There is al­so a man­date that stu­dents are to write an ex­am­i­na­tion at end of Form 2 and as you would have heard from the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, he has pro­vid­ed fi­nances for fur­ther in­ter­ven­tion,” he added. Ran­jit al­so said the Learn­ing Re­cov­ery and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme is al­so be­ing in­tro­duced.

Mean­while, the chair­man of the Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry Schools Board Vick­ram Ram­lal al­so laud­ed the stu­dents for over­com­ing pan­dem­ic chal­lenges. 

Among those re­ceiv­ing awards was Kayleigh Ra­jku­mar of Freeport Pres­by­ter­ian School who was giv­en a cash prize and a tro­phy for scor­ing the high­est among Pres­by­ter­ian Schools across the coun­try.

The over­all sec­ond-place win­ner was Omari Bernard of Princes Town Pres­by­ter­ian Num­ber 2, a school that has been plagued with in­fra­struc­tur­al chal­lenges.

Third place over­all win­ner went to Sarah Eliz­a­beth Ho­sein, of Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian, the sis­ter of CNC3’s weath­er an­chor Kalain Ho­sein. Sarah was the top-per­form­ing Pres­by­ter­ian pri­ma­ry school stu­dent in the Vic­to­ria Ed­u­ca­tion­al Dis­trict.

The top per­form­ing Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School tro­phy went to the Ex­change Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry school.

That award was based on the over­all per­for­mance of all stu­dents who wrote the ex­am.

Mod­er­a­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church Rev Joy Ab­dul-Mo­han said the stu­dents worked hard to over­come the odds.

How­ev­er, she said ku­dos should be giv­en not on­ly to stu­dents but al­so to par­ents, teach­ers and prin­ci­pals.

Ad­dress­ing the pupils, Ab­dul-Mo­han said: “You have worked hard with the sup­port and love of par­ents and friends. When we achieve suc­cess, we should nev­er for­get the hard work and sac­ri­fice of those who helped us to achieve—Our teach­ers and ed­u­ca­tors. We should live with hu­mil­i­ty and make a good dif­fer­ence in the world.”

She al­so said there were ze­ro re­ports of school vi­o­lence in Pres­by­ter­ian schools.