De­spite the var­i­ous health and lo­gis­ti­cal con­cerns that threat­ened to up­set the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the 2021 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am in the weeks pri­or – all stake­hold­ers yes­ter­day agreed it was smooth and with­out hic­cups or dis­rup­tions.

Of the 19,651 stu­dents reg­is­tered to write the ex­am yes­ter­day, a small num­ber of them were re­port­ed­ly un­able to stick to the sched­ule due to be­ing on quar­an­tine as a re­sult of the COVID-19 virus.

Con­firm­ing this yes­ter­day, the pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals’ As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA), Car­lene Hayes as­sured while this was so, “The ma­jor­i­ty of Stan­dard Five stu­dents wrote the ex­am.”

She said those un­able to write yes­ter­day’s ex­am should be ac­com­mo­dat­ed when the make-up ex­am is ad­min­is­tered on Ju­ly 21.

Mean­while, cel­e­bra­tions last evening took on a dif­fer­ent face as stu­dents gath­ered qui­et­ly with rel­a­tives on­ly - apart from friends as is the cus­tom­ary prac­tice – to re­flect on the chal­lenges they had faced in get­ting to yes­ter­day.

For the Stan­dard Five stu­dents, prepa­ra­tion for the ex­am­i­na­tion took place sole­ly on­line as the virus put a damper on any hopes for in-per­son learn­ing.

Even a plan for them to re­turn to school in April was quick­ly scrapped be­cause of the then rise in COVID-19 cas­es.

Dur­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic year, par­ents of stu­dents com­plained about a lack of de­vices and in­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty in or­der to fa­cil­i­tate on­line learn­ing.

The aca­d­e­m­ic year was al­so fraught with re­ports of stu­dents bat­tling the stress of dis­tance learn­ing, par­ents and teach­ers al­so strug­gling to adapt to the new sys­tem and stu­dents bat­tling with the emo­tion­al toll of be­ing iso­lat­ed from their peers due to a lack of in­ter­ac­tion.

Many of these is­sues were high­light­ed dur­ing sev­er­al Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee meet­ings of Par­lia­ment ear­li­er this year, with re­ports that 2,000 stu­dents had dropped out of school.

But for many stu­dents, yes­ter­day was not on­ly about writ­ing the ex­am, which was post­poned from June 10 to Ju­ly 1, but it was al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to fi­nal­ly come face-to-face with their friends, al­beit with some re­stric­tions.

SEA Stu­dent: I was glad to see my friends

A 12-year-old stu­dent from a school in Port-of-Spain re­count­ed, “My ex­pe­ri­ence was kind of weird be­cause it had less peo­ple in the class­room and with one su­per­vi­sor and about nine chil­dren in­clud­ing my­self, it felt weird be­cause it would nor­mal­ly be 20-some­thing chil­dren in the class and it had less.”

Hap­py that she got to see her friends dur­ing the short break, she said, “I didn’t get to touch them be­cause of the COVID sit­u­a­tion but I could speak with them and I was grate­ful for that be­cause that was the main thing I want­ed to do.”

Sat­is­fied with the health pro­to­cols, the stu­dent con­firmed the desks were placed six feet apart, while tem­per­a­ture checks were con­duct­ed on every­one present, and sani­tis­ing agents were dis­pensed to them al­so.

“They had pipes with soaps out­side all of the class­rooms al­so, and the ma­chines on the walls were all filled, so I was hap­py with that.”

‘No ma­jor hic­cups’

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan was al­so hap­py. In a state­ment is­sued she as­sured, “From all re­ports the ex­am­i­na­tions were con­duct­ed with no ma­jor hic­cups.”

And she thanked “All prin­ci­pals, teach­ers, mon­i­tors, school su­per­vi­sors, the NMTS, the Min­istry of Health and our very own MoE Dis­trict Health Unit and sup­port staff for their roles in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the SEA 2021 Ex­am­i­na­tions.”

Asked if any of the 19,651 stu­dents who had reg­is­tered to write the ex­am had pre­sent­ed with vi­ral symp­toms and would have been turned away yes­ter­day morn­ing, Gads­by-Dol­ly said up to 4 pm yes­ter­day, “No re­ports of stu­dents with vi­ral symp­toms have come in.”

Pri­or to the start of the ex­am at 8.30 am, Gads­by-Dol­ly, ac­com­pa­nied by Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Lenore Bap­tiste-Sim­mons and Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Lisa Hen­ry David, vis­it­ed the Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Pri­ma­ry School, San Juan and the Tran­quil­i­ty Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, Port-of-Spain.

Min­utes af­ter ex­it­ing the Tran­quil­i­ty Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School fol­low­ing a walk-through of the ex­am class­rooms, Gads­by-Dol­ly spoke with re­porters dur­ing which she re­ferred to the chal­lenges the stu­dents and the MOE had faced as a re­sult of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

She said, “It has been an un­cer­tain time for our stu­dents be­cause they have not been in school since March 2020. And so we at the Min­istry are very hap­py to have the ex­ams com­plet­ed.”

Thank­ing the staff at the MOE, she con­tin­ued, “SEA is a huge un­der­tak­ing. It’s a mam­moth task and in this en­vi­ron­ment, it was a lot more dif­fi­cult. I want to thank the staff for bring­ing us to this point. Our teach­ers, the stu­dents, the par­ents all de­serve ku­dos for ex­hibit­ing re­silience and en­sur­ing we can have the ex­ams.”

This year, a to­tal of 19,651 stu­dents were reg­is­tered to write the ex­am – with 9,904 males and 9,747 fe­males.

In To­ba­go, 1,064 can­di­dates were reg­is­tered while 18,587 can­di­dates were reg­is­tered in Trinidad. A to­tal of 512 pri­vate can­di­dates were al­so reg­is­tered to write the ex­am.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 400 spe­cial needs stu­dents ben­e­fit­ted from con­ces­sions which in­clud­ed ex­tra time; sign lan­guage in­ter­pre­ta­tion; large print or Braille scripts; pref­er­en­tial seat­ing; and pro­vi­sion of a writer or read­er.

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals’ As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA), and The Move­ment for Con­cerned PTA Par­ents all con­firmed no ad­verse re­ports were made to them re­lat­ing to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the ex­am which last­ed for three hours and 20 min­utes.

SEA Su­per­vi­sor: Stu­dents con­formed to reg­u­la­tions

A su­per­vi­sor from a school in east Trinidad whose 26 ex­am stu­dents were all seat­ed by 8 am, com­mend­ed her prin­ci­pal who act­ed as the cen­tre man­ag­er “for do­ing every­thing she had to do and get­ting it done on time.”

In­di­cat­ing a spe­cial wait­ing area had been set up on the school’s com­pound to re­ceive the stu­dents who were dropped off at the gate, she as­sured, “There was no chance for them to con­gre­gate as there were testers wait­ing to guide them un­til they were ready to come in­to the ex­am room.”

And prais­ing her stu­dents for ad­her­ing to the strict health reg­u­la­tions even dur­ing the 30-minute re­cess, the su­per­vi­sor said, “Dur­ing the break, the stu­dents would nor­mal­ly be al­lowed to go out­side, but this year, it was dif­fer­ent as the chil­dren re­mained in their seats.”

Con­sum­ing their snack and drinks at the desk in full view of the in­vig­i­la­tors, she added, “One of the an­cil­lary staff mem­bers dis­trib­uted the snacks, so even dur­ing the break, they weren’t al­lowed to roam the school­yard, so you saw no one out­side.”

Pressed to say if any of her coun­ter­parts had ex­pressed fears or anx­i­eties re­gard­ing vac­ci­nat­ed and un­vac­ci­nat­ed per­son­nel, she said, “No. Most of the teach­ers who worked would have at least re­ceived their first dose of the vac­cine.”

Ad­mit­ting this year’s mea­sures were more strin­gent than in 2020, the se­nior teacher spec­u­lat­ed that the cur­rent cur­few could have in­flu­enced the be­hav­iour of par­ents who col­lect­ed their chil­dren im­me­di­ate­ly – un­like in pre­vi­ous years, where they were hap­py to stand around and ex­change small talk with each oth­er.

SEA re­sults are ex­pect­ed to be re­leased by Oc­to­ber 8.