For­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has urged par­ents to be cau­tious as the Gov­ern­ment rein­tro­duces the top 200 list for Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) stu­dents.

Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing an in­ter­view at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing held at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day, she said that while the rank­ing recog­nis­es achieve­ment, it has in the past caused stu­dents to feel dis­sat­is­fied with their re­sults.

“What was hap­pen­ing is that stu­dents were plac­ing for their first-choice school, so they were suc­cess­ful­ly plac­ing, but were still send­ing re­views to make sure that they were in the top 100, top 200, or even high­er,” she ex­plained.

“You would have seen stu­dents who did very well in their ex­am­i­na­tions ask­ing for re­views. And the out­come was that stu­dents who were suc­cess­ful in their pri­ma­ry school ca­reer and got in­to sec­ondary school with very good marks were be­com­ing de­pressed and frus­trat­ed be­cause they didn’t come first or sec­ond. That is a very un­healthy pro­gres­sion that came out of some­thing that is not in it­self wrong, which is recog­nis­ing stu­dents’ hard work.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly said she hoped par­ents would do well to en­sure there is no re­peat of this bad prac­tice.

“Men­tal health has tak­en a very im­por­tant place in our dis­cus­sions with stu­dents. If you ask a child now about coun­selling, they are more open be­cause they see it as part of nor­mal life. It is im­por­tant for par­ents not to put pres­sure on stu­dents or on them­selves. This is not the end of the game; it is the start. Par­ents must guard the men­tal health of their chil­dren dur­ing this process.”

On the is­sue of school re­pairs, Na­tion­al PTA pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art had ear­li­er de­scribed the works car­ried out be­tween June and Au­gust as “a her­culean task nev­er be­fore seen,” not­ing that more than 400 schools were ad­dressed in a short pe­ri­od.

When asked about those com­ments, Gads­by-Dol­ly said re­pair projects have al­ways tak­en place dur­ing the Ju­ly–Au­gust va­ca­tion pe­ri­od. “School re­pairs have al­ready been on­go­ing. But the fact is that school was de­layed by a week to al­low re­pairs to be com­plet­ed. That is his­toric in it­self be­cause we have nev­er de­layed the en­tire ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem by a week. You will see one or two schools maybe be­ing de­layed in their start, but in this case, the en­tire sys­tem was de­layed to en­sure the re­pairs were fin­ished.”