RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter months of an­tic­i­pa­tion and hard work, over 18,000 plus stu­dents ac­cessed their 2023 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment re­sults on Mon­day, un­lock­ing a new chap­ter of their lives.

And al­though the SEA por­tal ex­pe­ri­enced de­lays as ex­pect­ed, the chil­dren cel­e­brat­ed across the na­tion with spe­cials from sev­er­al cor­po­rate en­ti­ties along with their par­ents, teach­ers and peers.

Among those cel­e­brat­ing was Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian School pupil, Por­tia Rago­b­ar, who passed for Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School.

Hug­ging her fa­ther Christo­pher and grand­par­ents Steve and Joanne Rago­b­ar, Por­tia said she did not ex­pect to get a per­fect score in Cre­ative Writ­ing. 

“I got nine­ty per cent in Maths and Lan­guage, this is just awe­some!” she ex­claimed ex­cit­ed­ly.

Christo­pher said he ex­pect­ed his daugh­ter to do well, not­ing she had worked hard to se­cure en­try in­to her first choice school.

Mean­while, at San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School, 69 pupils wrote the SEA ex­ams, with 57 se­cur­ing spots in their first choice schools, in­clud­ing Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School, Na­pari­ma Col­lege, AS­JA Boys’ Col­lege, AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, and St Joseph’s Con­vent. 

A school of­fi­cial told Guardian Me­dia that over 22 pupils sur­passed the 90 per cent mark, sur­pass­ing the school’s ex­pec­ta­tions in Math­e­mat­ics and Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts. 

On Thurs­day, tro­phies and awards will be pre­sent­ed to the school’s top achiev­ers dur­ing a spe­cial awards func­tion.

Al­so, there was al­so eu­pho­ria at Cedar Grove Pri­vate School as pupils cel­e­brat­ed their suc­cess by sign­ing their au­to­graphs on their school shirts. 

Si­en­na Lexy Bhikar­rie, filled with ex­cite­ment, re­vealed her ac­cep­tance in­to her first choice school, Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School. 

Her school­mate, Do­minic Al­lum de­scribed, his re­sults as “un­be­liev­able.” “This is bet­ter than I dreamed. I passed for my first choice, Naps,” he shout­ed.

Prin­ci­pal Sha­heed Al­la­ham ex­pressed his de­light at the pupils’ im­proved per­for­mance com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year.

 “The re­sults were ex­cel­lent. We sent up 23 pupils, 14 got their first choice, three got their sec­ond choice, three got their third choice, one got his fourth choice, and two were zoned,” he said.

Al­la­ham ad­vised par­ents against plac­ing un­due pres­sure on their chil­dren, stat­ing that un­re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tions of­ten added emo­tion­al stress. He em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of sup­port­ing and work­ing with chil­dren rather than pres­sur­ing them.

At San Fer­nan­do Boys’ RC, pupils cel­e­brat­ed.

One Par­ent Keon Haynes hugged his son Jor­dan while wait­ing for the re­sults on­line. 

“I wish him all the best be­cause, at the end of the day, he did his best,” Haynes said. An­oth­er par­ent, Romell Cas­tro, ex­pressed his un­wa­ver­ing pride in his son’s ac­com­plish­ments.

“I am al­ways proud of my son,” he said gaz­ing at him with love.

In Ma­yaro and Guayagua­yare, pupils al­so rev­elled in im­proved grades.