JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Six boys are among the top nine stu­dents in this year’s Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA), as over­all stu­dent per­for­mance im­proved com­pared with last year.

Speak­ing at an award cer­e­mo­ny to ho­n­our the stu­dents yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath con­grat­u­lat­ed all SEA stu­dents, ap­plaud­ing the im­prove­ment in scores over last year.

“The high­est com­pos­ite stan­dard score record­ed, and that’s the max­i­mum score that you could make in the 2026 SEA, was 253.423. What is tru­ly re­mark­able of our young achiev­ers is that three stu­dents made that max­i­mum score,” Dowlath said, adding that the scores re­main sub­ject to re­view, if par­ents de­cide.

The stu­dents, list­ed in al­pha­bet­i­cal or­der rather than by rank­ing, were Kather­ine Ajod­ha, Ama­ra Batan, Shiv­an Khan, Shaz­ana Mo­hammed, Adam Ng Tang, Liam Ra­j­nauth, Ethan Ram­lacks­ingh, David Ram­lakhan and Vivek Su­per­sad-Ma­haraj.

Dowlath said the re­sults told a larg­er sto­ry, re­flect­ing progress across mul­ti­ple in­di­ca­tors of stu­dent achieve­ment. He added that the col­lec­tive ef­forts to strength­en teach­ing and learn­ing were be­gin­ning to bear fruit, mark­ing a mean­ing­ful re­turn to ex­cel­lence in ed­u­ca­tion.

Point­ing to the over­all im­prove­ments, Dowlath not­ed that the mean score in Math­e­mat­ics in­creased from 52.10 last year to 53.84 this year. Eng­lish im­proved from 66.70 to 68.66, while Lan­guage Arts Writ­ing rose from 11.25 to 11.57.

“We have al­so wit­nessed sig­nif­i­cant progress at key na­tion­al per­for­mance bench­marks. In 2025, last year, 66.18 per cent or 11,827 stu­dents scored above the 50 per cent bench­mark. This year, the fig­ure im­proved to 70.73 per cent of stu­dents, rep­re­sent­ing 12,384 stu­dents. Equal­ly en­cour­ag­ing is that there was an in­crease in the above 90 per cent of achiev­ers. In 2025, 421 stu­dents achieved scores of over 90 per cent. In 2026, 670 stu­dents scored above 90 per cent. This rep­re­sents an in­crease of 249 stu­dents, per­form­ing at an ex­cep­tion­al lev­el.”

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter said the im­proved re­sults were strength­ened by the in­tro­duc­tion of the con­tin­u­ous as­sess­ment com­po­nent, which will come on stream from the new school term.

“We’ve al­so added en­hanced AI-en­abled learn­ing re­sources like the SEA Math­e­mat­ics past pa­per so­lu­tions plat­form, and this has pro­vid­ed stu­dents with a more per­son­alised op­por­tu­ni­ty to prac­tice, re­vise and re­in­force key con­cepts be­yond the class­room. Im­por­tant­ly, these gains have been com­ple­ment­ed by tar­get­ed sup­port mech­a­nisms.”

Dowlath said those tar­get­ed sup­port mech­a­nisms al­so con­tributed to im­proved per­for­mance among the 189 pri­or­i­ty pri­ma­ry schools iden­ti­fied last year af­ter 6,000 stu­dents scored less than 50 per cent, with fo­cused in­ter­ven­tions im­ple­ment­ed at those schools.

“Amongst the pri­or­i­ty pri­ma­ry schools, the av­er­age school lev­el per­cent­age of stu­dents scor­ing above 50 per cent in­creased from 41.75% in 2025 to 51.81% in 2026. The num­ber of pri­or­i­ty schools where at least half of the stu­dents scored above 50% in­creased from 72 schools in 2025 to 116 schools in 2026. That means 44 ad­di­tion­al schools crossed this im­por­tant per­for­mance bench­mark.”

The nine stu­dents all said the sup­port of their fam­i­lies and main­tain­ing a healthy bal­ance be­tween school­work and ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties played cru­cial roles in achiev­ing their top scores. Apart from en­cour­age­ment from their teach­ers, the chil­dren al­so said their faith played an im­por­tant role in their suc­cess.

Al­so at­tend­ing the cer­e­mo­ny was pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion Wal­ter Stew­art, who con­grat­u­lat­ed the boys, say­ing there has been con­cern that boys were lag­ging be­hind aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. Stew­art added that see­ing the boys ex­cel made him “dou­bly proud and pleased.”

On the con­tin­u­ous as­sess­ment com­po­nent, Stew­art said the as­so­ci­a­tion is look­ing at it and con­tin­ue to be in dis­cus­sions with the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry on the mat­ter. He said one ex­am, on one day, may have an ad­verse ef­fect on the chil­dren.

Stew­art thanked par­ents, teach­ers and prin­ci­pals for their role in en­sur­ing the suc­cess of the chil­dren.

TOP NINE STU­DENTS

Kather­ine Ajod­ha

Pri­ma­ry School: St Pe­ter’s Pri­vate

Sec­ondary School: Na­pari­ma Girls’ High

Ama­ra Batan

Pri­ma­ry School: Curepe Pres­by­ter­ian

Sec­ondary School: Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege

Shiv­an Khan

Pri­ma­ry School: Ca­roni Hin­du

Sec­ondary School: Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas

Shaz­ana Mo­hammed

Pri­ma­ry School: Debe Hin­du

Sec­ondary School: Na­pari­ma Girls’ High

Adam Ng Tang

Pri­ma­ry School: Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment

Sec­ondary School: Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas

Liam Ra­j­nauth

Pri­ma­ry School: Trinidad Re­nais­sance Prepara­to­ry

Sec­ondary School: Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do

Ethan Ram­lack­hans­ingh

Pri­ma­ry School: San Fer­nan­do TML

Sec­ondary School: Na­pari­ma Col­lege

David Ram­lakhan

Pri­ma­ry School: Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment

Sec­ondary School: Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas

Vivek Su­per­sad-Ma­haraj

Pri­ma­ry School: Munroe Road Hin­du

Sec­ondary School: Hillview Col­lege