KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

One month ago, pupils of the Gloster Lodge Mora­vian Pri­ma­ry School were left trau­ma­tised af­ter 50-year-old Amoa Howe was shot dead out­side the school on Feb­ru­ary 20. There were con­cerns that the in­ci­dent might pupils reg­is­tered for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion.

Yes­ter­day dozens of those pupils sat the ex­am and while the mem­o­ry of the in­ci­dent re­mains fresh in the minds of some, par­ents said hear­ing gun­shots is the norm for chil­dren liv­ing and at­tend­ing school in the area.

As he wait­ed out­side the school on Gloster Lodge Road, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Sylvester Walk­er said: “This is not the first time. The chil­dren that are com­ing here, there were many oth­er in­stances, yes. But it hap­pened more in the night. Now they’re get­ting brave in the day­time, so you have to be con­cerned about that.”

An­oth­er par­ent, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said: “I’m sor­ry to put it that way but, that’s a reg­u­lar thing . . . It was the talk of the town be­cause it hap­pened right out­side the school, but it didn’t re­al­ly af­fect her (his daugh­ter) per­for­mance, at least that I could see.”

While there was anx­i­ety among some pupils yes­ter­day, it was not about their safe­ty, as some pupils said they are ac­cus­tomed to hear­ing gun­shots. Yes­ter­day they blocked out all the noise to fo­cus on their ex­am.

Asked what their biggest chal­lenge was, most pupils said Math­e­mat­ics, while Lan­guage Arts was ranked as the eas­i­est ex­am.

At oth­er schools in the cap­i­tal yes­ter­day, par­ents and pupils said they were re­lieved the ex­am was over.

St Hil­da’s Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School pupil Kimo­ra Richards said: “I feel very re­lieved be­cause it was a lot of hard work and it wasn’t an easy jour­ney, but it’s not the end of my jour­ney. It’s just a chap­ter that I have to close.”

The moth­er of a male pupil at the same school, Emi­ly Prud­homme, said: “I feel re­lieved. Of course, I’m ex­cit­ed for him to go in­to his new school, to jour­ney on in life… I re­al­ly have to thank the teach­ers and prin­ci­pal as well for be­ing so ded­i­cat­ed to the chil­dren.”

When she asked her son his thoughts on the ex­am, he said: “Easy!”

The Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion said it was an in­ci­dent-free day for the 18,246 pupils - 9170 males and 9076 fe­males - who sat the ex­am­i­na­tion yes­ter­day. There were 17,248 can­di­dates in Trinidad and 998 in To­ba­go.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said she was sat­is­fied with how the ex­am was ad­min­is­tered and the se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures that were in place. She praised teach­ers,d school su­per­vi­sors, jan­i­tors and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers for their roles in yes­ter­day’s ex­am­i­na­tion.

“Fur­ther­more, our grat­i­tude ex­tends to part­ners such as the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (NMTS), Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), and oth­er en­ti­ties whose con­tri­bu­tions have been in­stru­men­tal in en­sur­ing the suc­cess and in­tegri­ty of the ex­am­i­na­tion process,” she added.

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) Wal­ter Stew­art said they re­ceived no re­ports of glitch­es in the ex­am.

“From all re­ports that I have re­ceived so far, it was tru­ly an in­ci­dent-free op­er­a­tion of the SEA 2024 and we are grate­ful to all the par­ties who would have con­tributed in what­ev­er way to en­sur­ing that this SEA went with­out a glitch or with­out any in­ci­dents at all.”

The min­istry said 447 spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion needs pupils re­ceived con­ces­sions in Trinidad and 21 in To­ba­go. This in­clud­ed ex­tra time, sign lan­guage in­ter­pre­ta­tion, large print or braille scripts, pref­er­en­tial seat­ing and the pro­vi­sion of a writer or read­er where need­ed.

Pupils who were un­able to write the ex­am yes­ter­day will be al­lowed to sit a sup­ple­men­tary ex­am on April 18.

The SEA re­sults will be avail­able in the first week of Ju­ly, the min­istry said.