Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

A week from to­day, some 17,375 pupils will write the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion af­ter months of prepa­ra­tion.us on do­ing well." This fig­ure was pro­vid­ed by the com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion yes­ter­day. Last year, 243 more pupils wrote the ex­am. March 18 will be a day of anx­i­ety, un­easi­ness and per­haps re­lief for thou­sands of pupils across the coun­try. But while the ex­am­i­na­tion seeks to place each pupil in a sec­ondary school, those who score 30 per cent or less would be forced to re­sit. Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Rous­tan Job said more fo­cus must be spent on those who were be­ing left be­hind in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem and that every child must be able to read, and do so well.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Job said: "We con­tin­ue to urge par­ents to be in­volved in the ed­u­ca­tion of their chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly those who are not do­ing so. "The chil­dren need it, with all the dis­trac­tions that sur­round them," he added. The TTUTA pres­i­dent said for years he had been ad­vo­cat­ing for the spe­cialised train­ing of teach­ers to teach read­ing to stu­dents. He said dur­ing a re­cent vis­it to Al­aba­ma in the US, there were lit­er­a­cy coach­es who taught teach­ers how to teach stu­dents to read. Job said one of the as­so­ci­a­tion's con­cerns was that of il­lit­er­a­cy. He said there were still many chil­dren who were leav­ing pri­ma­ry school and en­ter­ing sec­ondary school who can­not read.

"I know the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has some sort of pro­gramme to help slow learn­ers. "For three years or so I have been ad­vo­cat­ing that we must have spe­cialised teach­ers in read­ing and if we have chil­dren who are il­lit­er­ate and it is in­creas­ing, there must be in­ter­ven­tion in a se­ri­ous way," Job said.

He said so­ci­ety had be­come "ex­am-ori­ent­ed" and fo­cus was lost for those those who could not keep up. He urged the min­istry and all stake­hold­ers to as­sist those chil­dren who were be­ing left be­hind in the sys­tem "and bring them up to par." Job ad­vised pupils writ­ing the ex­am not to fo­cus on the school in which they were placed, but rather "fo­cus on do­ing well."