RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) was con­duct­ed with­out con­tro­ver­sy or leaks yes­ter­day af­ter strin­gent mea­sures were put in place at ex­am­i­na­tion cen­tres.

Ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures were en­forced, in­clud­ing no elec­tron­ic de­vices for ex­am­in­ers or su­per­vi­sors, and pupils opened their ex­am pa­pers in­de­pen­dent­ly. In ad­di­tion, sweeps were con­duct­ed at se­lect schools to pre­vent dis­rup­tions and there were po­lice pa­trols while the ex­am was in progress. 

Chair­man of the Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School Board Vick­ram Ram­lal, said he was pleased at how the ex­am­i­na­tion was con­duct­ed.

“We heard that the pa­pers were pack­aged dif­fer­ent­ly this year and could on­ly be opened by stu­dents. Ex­am­in­ers and su­per­vi­sors were not al­lowed to come in­to the ex­am­i­na­tion room with phones,” he said.

Ram­lal said he en­sured there was ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty at all 72 Pres­by­ter­ian schools and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion as­signed ad­di­tion­al guards to en­sure pupils’ com­fort and safe­ty.

 He not­ed that on­ly two pupils were ab­sent from the ex­am and one oth­er was with­drawn af­ter falling ill. 

Ram­lal said he did not think the ex­ams should be abol­ished as there must be a form of as­sess­ment for en­try in­to sec­ondary school. He rec­om­mend­ed a con­tin­u­ous form of as­sess­ment for pupils.

As pupils rushed out of the ex­am­i­na­tion rooms around 1.15 pm, there were shouts of ju­bi­la­tion and ex­pres­sions of re­lief.

At the San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School, pupils jumped for joy shout­ing, “Free­dom!”

School teacher Safiyya Ali hugged her son Alex who re­joiced that the ex­ams were fi­nal­ly over.

Ka­t­ri­na Singh hugged her fa­ther Ki­ran Singh who gave her flow­ers, bal­loons and a medal. Ka­t­ri­na said she was look­ing for­ward to an ex­cit­ing trip to Dis­ney­land.

Out­side St Gabriel’s Girls’ RC, a par­ent wiped away his daugh­ter’s tears of joy.

At Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help Church, a few par­ents were seen pray­ing, be­fore the start of the ex­am.

Par­ent Car­olyn King-Hen­ry said: “I am here to say a lit­tle prayer to help her through so she will not be anx­ious when she is writ­ing the ex­ams.”

Melis­sa Hen­ry said she begged God to take away the anx­i­ety from all the SEA can­di­dates.

“My daugh­ter was so ex­cit­ed for the ex­am that she was up by 5 am. I could not sleep last night,” Hen­ry said.

Chelsea Mo­hammed, not­ing that SEA can be stress­ful for stu­dents, said: “With the love of my teach­ers, I man­aged to jug­gle every­thing by al­low­ing my­self a bit of time, 15 min­utes or a half hour, be­fore go­ing back to my stud­ies and re­view­ing every­thing that we have done for the past two years.”

She added: “The road might be bumpy but all you have to do is try your best and get through.”

Re­flect­ing on the am­i­na­tion pa­pers, Rav­ina Go­sine said: “It was eas­i­er than I thought. I feel hap­py that the ex­am is over.”

At the Pi­paro Pres­by­ter­ian School, some stu­dents said they found sev­er­al of the ques­tions in the Math­e­mat­ics pa­per prob­lem­at­ic.

Matthew Son­ny­lal said: “The ex­am was good but I still feel ner­vous be­cause I am not good at Maths at all. Num­ber 14 Sec­tion 3 was prob­lems. 

And Afeiza Mo­hammed said the ex­am ques­tions were sim­ple but the ELA gave her some dif­fi­cul­ties.

“I pulled through and fin­ished all the ques­tions, so I am very ex­cit­ed. I want to sleep and just re­lax. I hope to pass for AS­JA Girls or San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral,” she said.

A to­tal of 18,246 pupils wrote the SEA this year.