Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Five days be­fore the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­ams, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry Works Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine vis­it­ed 11 schools in her Oropouche West con­stituen­cy. She dis­trib­uted sta­tionery and gave ad­vice to anx­ious SEA pupils. Among the schools vis­it­ed were Bi­en Venue Pri­ma­ry School, San Fran­cique Hin­du School, San Fran­cique Pres­by­ter­ian, Her­mitage Pres­by­ter­ian and Wood­land Hin­du School. At her last stop at San Fran­cique, Roop­nar­ine ad­vised the pupils to re­main calm and to en­sure that they had a healthy break­fast be­fore the ex­ams on March 29. "Don't eat any­thing that you are not ac­cus­tomed to eat­ing... Stay away from milky foods and make sure and have break­fast," Roop­nar­ine ad­vised.

She al­so told the pupils to say a lit­tle prayer be­fore be­gin­ning the ex­ams. Asked by re­porters whether she be­lieved the SEA ex­ams were too stren­u­ous for pupils, Roop­nar­ine said: "I think our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem in Trinidad is very com­pet­i­tive and turns out suc­cess­ful peo­ple...The SEA ex­am is no dif­fer­ent." She said, how­ev­er, that the en­tire ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem had room for im­prove­ment, adding that Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh was look­ing at the cur­ricu­lum and was as­sess­ing whether any changes could be made. Roop­nar­ine said most of the stu­dents she vis­it­ed were ready for the ex­ams and did not dis­play any signs of ner­vous­ness.

Asked whether the sta­tion­ary dis­tri­b­u­tion was part of a dri­ve start­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Roop­nar­ine said the dis­tri­b­u­tion was part of her con­stituen­cy's own ef­forts. Sev­er­al pupils in­ter­viewed yes­ter­day said they were thank­ful to get erasers, pen­cils, rulers and a sharp­en­er for the ex­ams.

Kevin Ar­joon said: "This will come in handy on the day... I am hap­py for this gift." Two oth­er stu­dents, Sara Ram­lal and Naarisa Jug­mo­han, said they would keep Roopan­rine's mes­sage in their hearts on the day of the ex­am. Af­ter the tour, Roop­nar­ine spent the rest of the day speak­ing with peo­ple in her con­stituen­cy.