RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

They spent al­most two years at­tend­ing on­line class­es in prepa­ra­tion for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tions and as the ex­am­i­na­tion fi­nal­ly came to an end yes­ter­day, stu­dents re­joiced over their free­dom - at least for the next cou­ple weeks dur­ing the East­er va­ca­tion.

A to­tal of 19,189 wrote the ex­ams and those whose par­ents could af­ford it spent many ex­tra hours do­ing pri­vate class­es in readi­ness for the ex­ams.

With COVID claim­ing the lives of 3,750 peo­ple, it was like­ly that some chil­dren sat the ex­am with heavy hearts, miss­ing those they lost due to the dead­ly dis­ease. Oth­ers went in hap­py and ex­cit­ed, ready to sit their ex­am so the process could fi­nal­ly come to an end.

At the San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School, stu­dents ex­pressed re­lief.

Sumayyah Has­sanali hugged her par­ents Tasliymah and Ameer, say­ing, “I am so hap­py it’s over. I feel re­lieved and now I can do every­thing that I can do. My dad helped me a lot. I tried not to stress out too much. I plan to watch crick­et now.”

Ren­nie Esa­hack hugged his son Feyad as he breathed a sigh of re­lief, say­ing: “Now I can play with my broth­er and sis­ter and play some video games.”

Feyad added that SEA prepa­ra­tion was tough and many times he stayed up late at night study­ing.

The stu­dents heaped praise on their Stan­dard Five teach­ers Shaz­ara Mo­hammed and Ims­haz Ho­sein for the ex­tra guid­ance they re­ceived dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, de­spite COVID chal­lenges. 

A group of par­ents went to Ho­sein’s home in Mara­bel­la bear­ing gifts, bal­loons and thank you cards.

“You’re the best teacher we ever had,” they shout­ed. 

At the Debe Hin­du school, chil­dren raced out of the school scream­ing with hap­pi­ness. 

Kaysha Bridge­lal said, “I feel so hap­py and now I don’t have to wor­ry about study­ing. To­day, we are go­ing for din­ner in the restau­rant.”

He said he was look­ing for­ward to hav­ing in-per­son class­es, say­ing he hoped to pass for Na­pari­ma Col­lege. He said on­ly the Gram­mar gave him prob­lems in the ex­am­i­na­tion room.

An­oth­er pupil, Shay­don Lalchan, said the ex­ams were easy and he looked for­ward to a full re­turn to school in Sep­tem­ber.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly dis­missed ru­mours that there had been a leak of the SEA pa­pers in South Trinidad. She said there had been no dis­rup­tions at any of the 500 cen­tres where the ex­am­i­na­tion took place. She said ini­tial re­ports stat­ed 193 stu­dents in Trinidad did not write the ex­ams as planned. Out of this, 44 were ab­sent due to COVID-19-re­lat­ed rea­sons.   

Those stu­dents will sit a make-up ex­am­i­na­tion on April 21. The min­is­ter com­mend­ed the 3,400 staffers who as­sist­ed with the ex­ams.

Mean­while, St Gabriel’s Girls’ RC Pri­ma­ry (San Fer­nan­do) prin­ci­pal Car­lene Voisin said prepa­ra­tion for SEA on­line was chal­leng­ing for some pupils but as soon as phys­i­cal class­es re­sumed, they be­gan work­ing even more with stu­dents.

“Dif­fer­ent chil­dren meant dif­fer­ent learn­ing styles. There were some gaps and a lot fell through and we had to get in gear as soon as we came out phys­i­cal­ly. It was a lot of work,” Voisin said.

She said for two months, they pre­pared every day. Asked if she was ner­vous, Voisin said no.

“We pray and we wait. I’m not ner­vous, I sub­mit it all to God, he is in con­trol. I trust they will do their best. We have 98 stu­dents writ­ing the ex­ams,” she added.  

Mean­while, at the San Fer­nan­do Boys’ RC, pupils were screened as they walked in­to the school com­pound. Par­ents were seen hug­ging and kiss­ing their chil­dren.

This is the third year that SEA was held dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Schools closed in March 2020 af­ter the coun­try record­ed its first case of COVID-19.

The pan­dem­ic dis­rupt­ed SEA and pupils strug­gled with on­line class­es. That year, the SEA was pushed to Au­gust 20 and 19,344 pupils sat the ex­am. In 2021 there were al­so de­lays with SEA and the ex­am­i­na­tion was held on Ju­ly 1, with 19,829 pupils sit­ting and 178 pupils ask­ing for a de­fer­ral to 2022.