Eme Eton has not yet done the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam, but she is already attempting exams at a more advanced level.
On April 17, the ten-year-old St Joseph’s Girls’ RC School student confidently made her way onto the St Augustine Secondary School compound as a private candidate, and did the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate CSEC Spanish paper three exam. She will be doing papers one and two in May, as well as History in June.
She told Guardian Media she likes to challenge herself and felt this was a novel way to see how far she could push her pre-teen mind.
“I wanted to try something new to test myself, and I do enjoy History.”
She is confident that she will be successful because she has and continues to put in the work.
Less than a year ago, Eton started Spanish classes at the Community Language Services, a missionary programme designed in 2006 by Willon Ivan Nurse.
Nurse said Eton excelled and expressed an interest in doing the CSEC exam.
“She asked if she could do it, if it would be difficult. I told her with preparation she would succeed and she took up the challenge,” Nurse said, adding that she was so committed to it that she is now teaching her younger sister, Eti.
Eton admitted that it takes a lot to prepare for the Spanish and History exams while having to study for the SEA exam next year. But she remains focused, a skill she believes she developed from playing chess.
“I enjoy playing chess. I entered a primary school competition last year and I won.”
She wants to attend St Joseph’s Convent, and her father, Dr Jeremiah Eton, has no doubt that that’s where she will end up. He said he has always encouraged his children to go a little beyond the ordinary.
“I’m elated that she has decided to do this. It’s a challenge, but I believe that sometimes we should do the hard things at the early stages.”
He said that since his daughter was five, she had told him she wanted to be an astronaut, and five years later, she is still determined to travel to space as an adult.
“When I was five, I didn’t even know that word,” he chuckled.
“But she knows what she wants and she also wants to make Trinidad and Tobago proud,” he added, in his thick Nigerian accent.
Nurse said since Eton’s attempt at the exam had been posted on the Community Language Services social media platforms, other parents have expressed an interest in having their children do the same.
“So something has been achieved.”
Nurse, a history major at the University of the Southern Caribbean (USC), from where the project is run, said when it was designed two decades ago, it started as one-on-one Spanish tutoring, and has evolved into an opportunity for more students to study a foreign language using a “simpler” method than that used by other teachers. And, he has plans to take it further.
“In T&T, we have a block in understanding the culture in Latin America – how to communicate effectively.” He said Community Language Services is preparing to fill that gap to help connect the cultures.
“Making the impossible possible. The programme is open to anyone who wants to study Spanish and History. My services are free of charge, because this is a missionary programme. I’m doing this to help humanity and my country because many years ago, someone gave me the help I needed, free of charge.”
Support for the project, financial and otherwise, Nurse said, comes from the USC and people who have benefitted from it in the past.
“So I have a lot of support.”
But he added that support from the Ministry of Education in the form of recognising Eton for taking up the challenge would add value to the programme.
