Spe­cial prayers were held for Stan­dard Five pupils from six Port-of-Spain schools at the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion yes­ter­day, two days be­fore the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tion.

“On a day like Thurs­day, God ex­pects you to do the best that you can do and should you fall short of that. God is not at all dis­ap­point­ed with your per­for­mance...I will pray that you will be at peace and be filled with con­fi­dence,” Vic­ar Gen­er­al Fa­ther Mar­tin Sir­ju said to the pupils.

The SEA ex­am is be­ing held on Thurs­day (March 21).

Fa­ther Sir­ju un­der­scored how im­por­tant the day is for the boys and girls of the Sa­cred Heart RC Pri­ma­ry School, the Nel­son Street RC Pri­ma­ry School and the Beth­le­hem RC Pri­ma­ry School. But he ex­plained that be­ing ed­u­cat­ed was not enough for a good fu­ture.

“Ed­u­ca­tion is in­deed very im­por­tant, get­ting sub­jects or some­times we say get­ting pa­pers is very im­por­tant but aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly-ed­u­cat­ed peo­ple does not mean that you are go­ing to have a good so­ci­ety. We have many ed­u­cat­ed peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go and yet our coun­try is cor­rupt for so,” he ex­plained.

Fa­ther Sir­ju told the pupils they should al­so strive to be fair and show mer­cy.

“Je­sus said in the gospel, do un­to oth­ers as you would have them do un­to you,” he said.

To in­stil the mes­sages of kind­ness, love, for­give­ness, char­i­ty and peace­mak­ing, the pupils made posters which were placed at the al­tar.

The pupils joined Fa­ther Sir­ju in prayer and one of their school­mates sang Psalm 23, The Lord is My Shep­herd (Come un­to Christ) for guid­ance as the ex­am day draws near.

He then tasked some of the pupils with read­ing an ex­cerpt from the Bible and em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of read­ing. He told them once they pos­sess that skill, even if they fail an ex­am they can al­ways pick up lat­er on.

Re­fer­ring to the re­cent Harpe Place shoot­ing that left five peo­ple dead on Sat­ur­day, Fa­ther Sir­ju told the con­gre­ga­tion that most of the boys who com­mit crimes can­not read. He ex­plained that once they learn to read from a young age, even if they fail their ex­ams they can try again when old­er.

Some 18,248 pupils will write the SEA ex­am.