Jesse Ramdeo

There was a wave of re­lief for over 19,000 pupils who sat this year’s Sec­ondary En­trance Ex­am­i­na­tion yes­ter­day, while there were mixed re­views about the dif­fer­ent com­po­nents. Many have since re­placed pre-ex­am anx­i­ety with ju­bi­la­tion, al­ready look­ing ahead to the next chap­ter of their lives.

At Sa­cred Hearts Girls’ RC in Port-of-Spain, anx­ious par­ents start­ed lin­ing the pave­ment from as ear­ly as 11 am to of­fer com­fort to their daugh­ters, whom they said felt the rigours of prepa­ra­tion dur­ing a pan­dem­ic.

Par­ent In­grid Gon­za­les said it was both a stress­ful and ex­cit­ing time for her and her daugh­ter.

“As par­ents, we need to sup­port our chil­dren, ed­u­ca­tion for me is very im­por­tant and we need to be there for them,” Gon­za­les said.

An­dor Best ex­plained that his emo­tions were high and laud­ed the sup­port of fam­i­ly mem­bers and teach­ers in par­tic­u­lar for en­sur­ing pupils were pre­pared for the ex­am­i­na­tion.

“It’s a big day in these stu­dents’ lives, it’s a step­ping stone, it’s not the end of the world. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, it was chal­leng­ing as a work­ing par­ent and I have a greater un­der­stand­ing and re­spect for the teach­ers.”

When the ex­am end­ed there was an erup­tion of ex­cite­ment as the Sa­cred Heart Girls pupils shout­ed in joy, their ju­bi­la­tion re­flect­ing the sac­ri­fices made for months.

Ja­leya Harp­er summed up the ex­am as man­age­able.

“It was very good ac­tu­al­ly, I’m very ex­cit­ed that it’s over, I’m just ex­cit­ed that I can re­lax and stuff be­cause I went through so much be­cause of this ex­am.”

Lucy Fe­lix said de­spite some hic­cups with some com­po­nents, it was an over­all suc­cess for her.

“It was good, a lit­tle dif­fi­cult but I’m con­fi­dent. The last two years of prepa­ra­tion could have been a lit­tle bet­ter. I feel with the on­line I may have got­ten a bit lazy dur­ing it, but now I feel much bet­ter.”

Daz­zling smiles were al­so on dis­play at the Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

Ac­cord­ing to Sajid Ali, Math­e­mat­ics proved a lit­tle chal­leng­ing but he put his best foot for­ward and tack­led the prob­lems head-on.

“It was easy, it took a lot of ef­fort and it was a bit tricky but I think I made a good ef­fort and I trust in God so I think I’ll do well.”

In To­ba­go, Scar­bor­ough Methodist Pri­ma­ry School pupils said the ex­am was a bit tricky but man­age­able.

Ac­cord­ing to Aman­ni Mcken­na, “It was good but let me tell you some­thing with some of these math ques­tions, some were like re­al tricky man.”