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Thursday, July 31, 2025

Call for end to publishing SEA results

Garcia weighing options

by

Rishard Khan & Jannelle Bernard
2311 days ago
20190402
Minister of Education Anthony Garcia speaks to Guardian Media yesterday at his office yesterday

Minister of Education Anthony Garcia speaks to Guardian Media yesterday at his office yesterday

Krystal James

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is still in con­sul­ta­tion with stake­hold­ers to de­ter­mine whether they should stop pub­lish­ing the re­sults of the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA), which will come off to­mor­row, in lo­cal news­pa­pers. How­ev­er, some of these stake­hold­ers say they be­lieve it should not be pub­lished.

Year af­ter year, par­ents have been call­ing on the min­istry to stop the prac­tice, as it caus­es un­due stress on stu­dents. This year, how­ev­er, the min­istry has heed­ed these calls and be­gan con­sul­ta­tions with var­i­ous stake­hold­ers last week.

Through­out the de­bate on pub­lish­ing the re­sults, there have been two ma­jor con­cerns pop­ping up. On one hand, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia ar­gues the re­sults have cus­tom­ar­i­ly been pub­lished to en­sure trans­paren­cy.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gar­cia said: “This ex­am needs to be as trans­par­ent as pos­si­ble and it is felt, on one hand, if the re­sults are pub­lished it would be meet­ing the needs of trans­paren­cy to a larg­er ex­tent.”

How­ev­er, the need for trans­paren­cy now has to be weighed against the rights of the child and par­ents to pri­va­cy and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

Gar­cia said the min­istry is not yet ready to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion but they are ex­plor­ing their op­tions.

“Yes­ter­day (Mon­day) at our strate­gic ex­ec­u­tive team meet­ing we dis­cussed that at length. We have not yet come up with a de­ter­mi­na­tion but we are can­vas­ing the views of all our stake­hold­ers be­fore we make a de­ter­mi­na­tion where this is con­cerned,” Gar­cia said.

Dis­cussing the is­sue in a tele­phone in­ter­view, child psy­chol­o­gist Dr Asha Pem­ber­ton said the pol­i­cy needs to be re­vis­it­ed.

“I think the chal­lenge with that stems from the over­ar­ch­ing ex­am­i­na­tion struc­ture, which is that par­ents and chil­dren treat it like a dooms­day phe­nom­e­non. If you don’t meet a cer­tain ex­pec­ta­tion or achieve­ment in school at this point in time, your en­tire fu­ture is over,” Pem­ber­ton said.

She said be­cause of this false nar­ra­tive of the ex­am­i­na­tion, a lot of pres­sure is placed on the chil­dren to suc­ceed at it.

“Be­cause of the pres­sure placed on this ex­am­i­na­tion and its out­come, the ad­di­tion­al fac­tor of the pub­li­cis­ing of the re­sults cer­tain­ly leads to anx­i­ety,” she ex­plained.

“I think our wider per­spec­tive has to change to in­volve the fact that chil­dren are in stages of de­vel­op­ment and their func­tion­ing at one point to­day, April 2019, will not nec­es­sar­i­ly be that in their fu­ture.”

Pem­ber­ton al­so be­lieves that the prac­tice of prin­ci­pals stand­ing in front of the school or class and an­nounc­ing the re­sults should be stopped.

“I know cer­tain­ly in decades gone by that was the way in­for­ma­tion was shared…but I think we have learnt more about the de­vel­op­ing self es­teems and the de­vel­op­ing sense of self of 11, 12-year-olds who re­al­ly are ear­ly ado­les­cents. I think that per­haps ed­u­ca­tors and those in po­si­tions of pow­er should re­vis­it the way in which the in­for­ma­tion is dis­pensed,” she said.

Pem­ber­ton un­der­stands the ar­gu­ment giv­en that the re­sults would be­come ap­par­ent when the child be­gins sec­ondary school. How­ev­er, she be­lieves the child and par­ent should have the pow­er to dis­close their re­sults whom they see fit.

Par­ents’ views should be re­spect­ed

Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry School Prin­ci­pals As­so­ci­a­tion (NPSPA) pres­i­dent Lance Mot­t­ley says the wish­es of par­ents on the pub­lish­ing of the SEA re­sult should be re­spect­ed.

“If par­ents don’t wish for their child’s re­sults to be pub­lished, then their rights should be re­spect­ed. Not be­cause some­thing has been go­ing on for many years makes it right to­day. Per­haps at the time, it was…con­ve­nient per­haps…but to­day, with de­vel­op­ments in tech­nol­o­gy and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the ques­tion we need to ask is why is it still be­ing pub­lished?” he said.

T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Ly­nes­ly Doo­d­hai al­so be­lieves the re­sults should not be pub­lished.

“I would like to sug­gest that be­cause of the times we live in, that the re­sults must not be pub­lished be­cause the re­sults re­al­ly are con­fi­den­tial to the par­tic­u­lar stu­dent who is writ­ing the ex­am­i­na­tion,” he said.

Cit­ing that the same is not done for ex­am­i­na­tions at oth­er lev­els such as the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil (CSEC) and uni­ver­si­ty ex­am­i­na­tions, he said the SEA re­sults should be done in a sim­i­lar, con­fi­den­tial man­ner.

Guardian Me­dia al­so took to the streets of the na­tion’s cap­i­tal, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day to speak to par­ents on the mat­ter and got mixed re­spons­es. Some agreed it should be pub­lished while oth­ers be­lieved it should not.


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