Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Years of stud­ies, prac­tice tests and ex­tra lessons came to an end for thou­sands of pri­ma­ry school stu­dents who sat the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tions yes­ter­day, as par­ents and their chil­dren cel­e­brat­ed the end of the first phase of their ed­u­ca­tion jour­ney.

A me­dia re­lease from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion yes­ter­day con­firmed that 17,573 stu­dents were reg­is­tered to write the ex­ams at 547 cen­tres na­tion­wide.

At sev­er­al schools along the east-west cor­ri­dor, par­ents were seen walk­ing their chil­dren to school from as ear­ly as 6.30 am, with some of­fer­ing prayers and last-minute en­cour­age­ment be­fore the ex­am.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side the St Mary’s An­gli­can School in Tacarigua yes­ter­day, one par­ent said while com­ple­tion of the ex­am was an im­por­tant mile­stone in any child’s life, she did not see the need to place any ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on her daugh­ter.

“We went through the ex­tra lessons and the past pa­per book­lets and every­thing, so I am con­fi­dent that she is go­ing to put her best foot for­ward, and that’s all I can ask for.

“There’s no need of stress­ing any­one out be­cause of one ex­am.”

When con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath said he was gen­er­al­ly pleased with the roll-out of SEA ex­am­i­na­tions at schools across T&T, but ad­vised this re­porter to send him ques­tions via What­sApp for fur­ther de­tails. How­ev­er, no re­spons­es were re­ceived up to press time.

In the Min­istry’s me­dia re­lease, Dr Dowlath com­mend­ed all stu­dents who sat the ex­am as he of­fered best wish­es to them.

“To­day you have shown not on­ly what you have learned, but who you are be­com­ing – fo­cused, ca­pa­ble and ready for the fu­ture.”

As stu­dents sat in their re­spec­tive ex­am rooms, their rel­a­tives were seen wait­ing out­side sev­er­al school com­pounds, ea­ger to wel­come their chil­dren once the fi­nal bell was rung.

Some par­ents were seen ar­riv­ing with bal­loons, signs, flow­ers and even small gifts.

At the Nel­son Street Boys’ RC School in down­town Port-of-Spain, the first trick­le of stu­dents were seen leav­ing the com­pound just be­fore 2 pm, be­fore im­me­di­ate­ly be­ing mobbed by ea­ger par­ents.

One moth­er, Vanes­sa Ma­son, said she was hap­py with the dili­gence and com­mit­ment shown by her son Emani John­son, not­ing that while the prepa­ra­tion had its chal­lenges, she was con­fi­dent that the sac­ri­fice would pay off.

“It was dif­fi­cult, but thank God we made it. We came to the end of this jour­ney, and most im­por­tant­ly, I know he did his best, so I am proud of him re­gard­less.”

Emani says he was al­so hope­ful that his years of prepa­ra­tion, to­geth­er with sup­port from teach­ers and tu­tors.

“The ex­am wasn’t that dif­fi­cult, but you had to give it your best and show some think­ing. I stud­ied up to yes­ter­day (Wednes­day), I did the ex­tra lessons for months, so I’m hop­ing I get my first choice of Trin­i­ty Col­lege East in Arou­ca.”

Mean­while, their fe­male coun­ter­parts from the Nel­son Street Girls’ RC School were seen leav­ing the com­pound short­ly af­ter, with cheers and fan­fare from wait­ing par­ents.

The fa­ther of one of the girls, Al­bert De­bel­lotte, said the prepa­ra­tion for ex­ams was dif­fi­cult and de­mand­ing, but he was proud of his daugh­ter’s dili­gence and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to her stud­ies, as he al­so thanked her moth­er for her in­volve­ment.

“She went to a lot of lessons. A lot went in­to it, and her moth­er was there every step of the way through­out this whole thing.

“We gave her a prayer and every­thing from be­fore­hand, so we didn’t do any­thing spe­cial.”

De­bel­lotte’s daugh­ter, Al­lian­na Seer­at­tan, said she put her trust in God and felt that her years of study­ing paid off.

“I an­swered every, sin­gle ques­tion, so I know with the help of our Lord and sav­iour Je­sus Christ, I will be fine.”

At Sa­cred Heart Girls’ RC School, sim­i­lar scenes of ju­bi­la­tion and cel­e­bra­tion were ob­served as par­ents and ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly greet­ed their chil­dren with warm hugs and presents.

Par­ent Re­na Rus­sell said the SEA prepa­ra­tion for her daugh­ter be­gan since she was in kinder­garten, not­ing that this was nec­es­sary to give her the best chance at suc­cess.

“It’s a lot of work with ex­tra lessons, be­cause she was in lessons in and out of school to get her to the stan­dard she is at, it was sev­en years of prepar­ing... a whole process is what this en­tails.”

As crowds around the schools even­tu­al­ly dis­si­pat­ed, stu­dents and their fam­i­lies flocked to Movi­eTowne Port-of-Spain, where they took ad­van­tage of var­i­ous of­fers, pro­mo­tions and deals to SEA stu­dents.

At sev­er­al restau­rants and with­in the ar­cade, stu­dents were seen frol­ick­ing with their fam­i­lies in cel­e­bra­tion of their re­cent­ly com­plet­ed mile­stone.