Melis­sa Doughty

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion says all sys­tems are in place for 18,039 school­child­ren to write to­day's Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am (SEA).A min­istry of­fi­cial told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day all eight ed­u­ca­tion­al dis­tricts in Trinidad and To­ba­go have said they were ready.Pe­ter Wil­son, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) gen­er­al sec­re­tary, ex­tend­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion's best wish­es to the chil­dren, hop­ing the min­istry had all sys­tems in place.

Not­ing that the ex­am is a high-stress one, Wil­son urged the pupils and par­ents to "reach on time so as to min­imise the stress."In March this year the as­so­ci­a­tion re­ferred to the min­istry's im­ple­men­ta­tion of the CAC pro­gramme as a farce.Mau­reen Tay­lor Ryan, the first vice pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA), said it was sat­is­fied with the prepa­ra­tions and sys­tems for the ex­am. She said the as­so­ci­a­tion al­so was sat­is­fied with the cre­ative-writ­ing com­po­nent of the ex­am be­ing done be­fore.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh said: "I wish to al­so as­sure all stu­dents, par­ents, teach­ers, prin­ci­pals and school su­per­vi­sors through­out T&T that all sys­tems are in place for the suc­cess­ful ad­min­is­tra­tion of these ex­ams."Gopeesingh added that all stu­dents writ­ing the ex­am would re­ceive a lap­top.

STU­DENTS WRIT­ING SEA BY DIS­TRICTS � 2013

(In­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion)

DIS­TRICT STU­DENTS

Ca­roni 2,730

North East­ern 1,045

Port-of-Spain 3,262

South East­ern 1,320

St. George East 4,557

St. Patrick 1,811

Vic­to­ria 2,459

To­ba­go 855

TO­TAL 18,039