Today 17,327 eager boys and girls across the country will write the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination after months of hard work. This will be the last year it will be held in March. It will be shifted to the end of May next year. Those who progress to secondary schools in September will be provided with laptops by the Government, possibly displaying the national colours as requested by Prime Minister Kamla Persad–Bissessar. According to Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh the specifications for the 17,000-plus laptops were "being drawn up" and he had asked the team responsible for the process to consider Persad–Bissessar's request. He said: "As soon as you see those laptops they will be identified as students' laptops."
During a press conference at the ministry's offices at Alexandra Street, St Clair, yesterday Gopeesingh said a team, comprising igovtt, IT staff from the Education Ministry and the permanent secretary "will be pretty shortly going out for advertisements." He added: "We hope to go out very early for the tendering process and the evaluation and based on that we should be able to distribute very early into the new academic year." He said he was hoping for a decrease in the cost of laptops for September's distribution.
The laptop initiative was one of the promises made by the Government during the election campaign.
Last September Government spent $83 million for the acquisition of 20,400 laptops from Hewlett–Packard. The minister also said additional software would be purchased "to reduce the proliferation of untoward issues with the laptops." Pupils representing Freeport Hindu, Newtown Boys' RC, Cunupia Government and Morvant Anglican Schools were presented with SEA tokens. All pupils writing the exam received similar tokens. Gopeesingh's advice to them was "to conceive it, believe it and you shall surely achieve it."
Gopeesingh optimistic about results
The Education Minister said he was optimistic for an improved performance among pupils writing the exam. He said a research analysis of the SEA results over the last five years was presented to all denominational boards indicating the performance in each school. "We asked them to meet with their schools, their principals and supervisors to ensure there is a better performance this year. "They have informed me that they have in fact done so and so I expect the students' performance will improve," Gopeesingh added. Last year, 17,270 wrote the SEA and 2,000 scored less than 30 per cent. Of the figure, 401 are today repeating the exam.