An­na-Lisa Paul

De­spite the con­tin­ued in­crease in the na­tion’s COVID-19 cas­es, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) has re­mained firm re­gard­ing the plan to ad­min­is­ter the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am on June 10.

And while an of­fer for a de­fer­ral has been ex­tend­ed by the min­istry to par­ents for their child to write the ex­am next year in­stead, it is not with­out strict con­di­tions.

Mean­while, the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of the Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NCP­TA) has re­peat­ed the call for the SEA ex­am to be post­poned to a lat­er date.

NCP­TA’s pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the Shami­la Ra­heem said due con­sid­er­a­tion must be paid to the wors­en­ing health sit­u­a­tion be­fore any fur­ther de­ci­sions are tak­en.

She urged min­istry of­fi­cials to wait “un­til the num­bers are un­der con­trol and con­sid­er push­ing the ex­am back to a lat­er date.”

And to par­ents, she cau­tioned: “As much as we want this over and done with, we have to be ma­ture and re­al­is­tic. We are pos­si­bly fac­ing more spikes and with our chil­dren be­ing out there, it is a greater risk for them.”

Even though stu­dents will be so­cial­ly dis­tanced for the ex­am, Ra­heem said it re­quires su­per­vi­sors and in­vig­i­la­tors to be present in the same space; and there are as­so­ci­at­ed risks for stu­dents who have to trav­el to and from school on that day.

Re­serv­ing com­ment un­til its’ Gen­er­al Coun­cil meets to­mor­row, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas told Guardian Me­dia, “Suf­fice it to say that TTUTA is ex­treme­ly con­cerned about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.”

Pres­i­dent of the the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) Car­lene Hayes al­so with­held com­ment yes­ter­day un­til dis­cus­sions are held with oth­er stake­hold­ers.

In the in­ter­nal memo ti­tled “Op­tion to De­fer the Sit­ting of the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) Ex­am­i­na­tion from 2021 to 2022” which was for­ward­ed to all pri­ma­ry school prin­ci­pals and School Su­per­vi­sors I, II and III on May 5 - act­ing chief ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer Lisa Hen­ry-David out­lined the at­tached con­di­tions.

Ad­vis­ing that an ap­pli­ca­tion does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly mean that a stu­dent will be grant­ed a de­fer­ral, she said, “The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, cog­nisant of the chal­lenges ex­pe­ri­enced by stu­dents prepar­ing to write the SEA 2021, and hav­ing con­sult­ed with key Ed­u­ca­tion­al Stake­hold­ers, has de­cid­ed to of­fer the op­tion to ap­ply for de­fer­ral of the sit­ting of the SEA from 2021 to 2022.”

Among the con­di­tions high­light­ed are that stu­dents who will at­tain the age of 15 be­fore Sep­tem­ber 1, 2021 are not el­i­gi­ble for de­fer­ral; while prin­ci­pals must con­sid­er pos­si­ble re-sits and the pro­ject­ed class size for the SEA 2022 when de­ter­min­ing the num­ber of de­fer­rals that can be ac­com­mo­dat­ed.

Par­ents must sub­mit a writ­ten re­quest for the de­fer­ral to the school’s prin­ci­pal, and where med­ical rea­sons are cit­ed, sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion must be at­tached to the ap­pli­ca­tion.

Ap­proval will on­ly be grant­ed fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tions be­tween the class teacher and the school’s ad­min­is­tra­tors – fol­low­ing which prin­ci­pals must sub­mit a list for de­fer­ral and the rea­sons cit­ed, along with their rec­om­men­da­tion and a list of the pro­ject­ed class size for SEA 2022 - to the Dis­trict Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fice by May 17.

School su­per­vi­sors are ex­pect­ed to col­late the in­for­ma­tion for their re­spec­tive dis­trict and for­ward to Hen­ry-David’s of­fice no lat­er than May 21.

Pro­mo­tion of stu­dents at teacher’s dis­cre­tion

Re­gard­ing the pro­mo­tion of pupils from First Year to Stan­dard Four at the pri­ma­ry school lev­el, Hen­ry-David wrote: “It is recog­nised that some stu­dents may, based on the ed­u­ca­tion­al chal­lenges of the last 14 months, be un­able to suc­cess­ful­ly ma­tric­u­late to an ad­vanced class. Prin­ci­pals should there­fore, seek from teach­ers, stu­dents who would most ben­e­fit from re­peat­ing their present class lev­el. This course of ac­tion must be rec­om­mend­ed by the prin­ci­pal and con­sent­ed to by the par­ent. Spa­tial con­sid­er­a­tions al­so ap­ply.”