An­na-Lisa Paul

Keen com­pe­ti­tion among stu­dents in this year's Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am has re­sult­ed in out­stand­ing in­di­vid­ual per­for­mances.How­ev­er, prin­ci­pals, stu­dents and par­ents were yes­ter­day left with many ques­tions and con­cerns about the cri­te­ria used to as­sign stu­dents to sec­ondary schools.

The T&T Guardian was told that many par­ents and stu­dents sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the mark­ing scheme and fac­tors used to de­cide to which school the stu­dents were as­signed, since they were un­hap­py with the schools they were placed in based on the marks they achieved.

Prin­ci­pals at sev­er­al pri­ma­ry schools along the East-West Cor­ri­dor said there were im­proved per­for­mances this year and at­trib­uted that to the in­tro­duc­tion of the Con­tin­u­ous As­sess­ment Com­po­nent (CAC), which they be­lieved helped stu­dents to ex­cel in cer­tain ar­eas and im­prove their over­all marks used by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to de­ter­mine their place­ment.

Of­fer­ing con­grat­u­la­tions to staff, stu­dents and par­ents at the El Do­ra­do South Hin­du School yes­ter­day was Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter and re­cent­ly re-elect­ed leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, Prakash Ra­mad­har, who urged the stu­dents to keep striv­ing for suc­cess as they tran­si­tioned from that phase of their life in­to an­oth­er.He said: "There is no lim­it to what you can do. You have an un­lim­it­ed abil­i­ty and ca­pac­i­ty to achieve what­ev­er you want."

Ra­mad­har's re­marks were brief as he hur­ried to vis­it sev­er­al oth­er schools in the area.Re­fer­ring to the high pass rates record­ed by de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools, Ra­mad­har said:"These are cen­tres of ex­cel­lence we are see­ing de­vel­op­ing more and more through­out the coun­try."It takes the ded­i­ca­tion of the staff, prin­ci­pal and par­ents work­ing as a co­he­sive team to make that hap­pen. It is crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant for chil­dren to feel loved and cared for, as they per­form bet­ter be­cause they are com­fort­able in that learn­ing space."

Asked if he thought the repli­ca­tion of these sys­tems in gov­ern­ment-run pri­ma­ry schools might yield sim­i­lar pass rates, Ra­mad­har replied:"There are a num­ber of fac­tors, such as dis­ci­pline, a sense of val­ue, tra­di­tion and com­mu­ni­ty, that is need­ed to make any in­sti­tu­tion all-em­brac­ing."I am con­fi­dent the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter can do it as he is a pro­gres­sive and in­no­v­a­tive man who will con­sid­er every­thing and it is prob­a­bly some­thing we might see be­ing done in the fu­ture."

Ben­e­fits from cac plan

Of the 83 stu­dents who wrote the SEA ex­am at the El Do­ra­do South Hin­du School, 55 at­tained place­ments at sev­en-year schools while 28 se­cured places at five-year schools.Among them was Kabir Singh, the son of the Min­is­ter of En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources Gan­ga Singh, who ex­pressed de­light and sat­is­fac­tion with the school's re­sults.An up­beat Kabir, who passed for Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege (Ch­agua­nas), his first choice, lat­er said: "I am look­ing for­ward to the fu­ture and what's ahead as I make new friends."

Prin­ci­pal Adesh Ma­haraj at­trib­uted the high pass-rate to the "im­pec­ca­ble plan­ning of the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tor and the ded­i­ca­tion of the hard-work­ing teach­ers."He al­so high­light­ed the Baal Vikaas pro­gramme con­duct­ed in all Hin­du pri­ma­ry schools as one of the main rea­sons his stu­dents se­cured such good place­ments.

This sen­ti­ment was al­so ex­pressed by the prin­ci­pal at the Tu­na­puna Hin­du School, Jee­wan Ramd­hanie, who said 84 stu­dents wrote the ex­am, with 57 se­cur­ing places at sev­en-year schools and 27 at five-year schools.He al­so sup­port­ed the CAC, which, he said, was hav­ing a pos­i­tive im­pact on some stu­dents.Re­it­er­at­ing that the sys­tem used in de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools, which nor­mal­ly be­gins with re­li­gious knowl­edge dai­ly, Ramd­hanie said: "Putting God first would play a great role in guid­ing chil­dren along the right path."

When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the Tu­na­puna Boys' RC School, par­ents could be seen await­ing their turn to meet with prin­ci­pal Ter­rence Cae­sar to dis­cuss their chil­dren's re­sults.Long faces and tears were spilt as some stu­dents cried when the re­sults were an­nounced.Cae­sar ex­plained that al­though his 48 boys achieved good in­di­vid­ual scores and he was hap­py with their per­for­mance, "be­cause of choic­es and the or­der of them, some of the place­ments were not what we ex­pect­ed."

Prin­ci­pal of the St Joseph TML, Rasheed Ali, said of the 75 stu­dents who wrote the ex­am, 40 were able to se­cure places at sev­en-year schools, with the re­main­ing num­ber be­ing as­signed to five-year schools.Ali al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the mark­ing sys­tem, as he said the scores of some stu­dents were "mod­er­at­ed." How­ev­er, he said, this year's re­sults had im­proved over last year's. He vowed to en­sure a high­er pass rate next year.

Arielle heads to dis­ney

Arielle Ramb­harose al­ways knew she would be a top scor­er in the SEA. "I was ex­pect­ing this. I feel great. It is amaz­ing to achieve this great ac­com­plish­ment," Ramb­harose told re­porters at her school yes­ter­day. Her moth­er, Lisa Ramb­harose, a li­brar­i­an of Bar­rack­pore West Sec­ondary, said her daugh­ter was well de­serv­ing of the ac­co­lade.

"She worked hard and she was con­fi­dent all the while that she will do well," Lisa said. Fa­ther Kailin­dra Ramb­harose, who works as an op­er­a­tions tech­ni­cian at At­lantic LNG, said he planned to take Ramb­harose to Dis­ney World for the Au­gust va­ca­tion."It will be a six-week va­ca­tion. She de­serves it," Kailin­dra said as he whisked her up in his arms. Ramb­harose said she was ex­cit­ed to start a new phase of her life, adding she want­ed to be­come a pe­di­a­tri­cian.

2014 stats

�2 8.9 per cent of stu­dents scored above 90 per cent, as com­pared to 5.9 per cent in 2010.

�2 65.2 per cent of stu­dents, a to­tal of 11,898, scored above 60 per cent, as com­pared to 51 per cent in 2008.

�2 A record 78.7 per cent, 14,360 stu­dents, scored above 50 per cent, as com­pared to the pre­vi­ous 68 per cent high in 2009.

�2 4.4 per cent of stu­dents scored be­low the 30 per cent, com­pared to 13.3 per cent in 2008.