I am dis­mayed by the cur­rent dis­pute be­tween the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) fol­low­ing the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion’s an­nounce­ment of the prepara­to­ry pe­ri­od (Ju­ly 20 to Au­gust 19) and the Au­gust 20 date for the writ­ing of the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion. As the par­ent of a Stan­dard 5 stu­dent who was sup­posed to write the ex­am­i­na­tion on April 2, I share my per­spec­tive.

TTUTA is on record rec­om­mend­ing that a four to six week pe­ri­od is need­ed to prop­er­ly pre­pare stu­dents for the SEA ex­am­i­na­tion; the pe­ri­od Ju­ly 20 to Au­gust 19 af­fords stu­dents more than four weeks to achieve this. Re­call, when schools closed in March, the ex­am­i­na­tion was a mere two weeks away. Stu­dents were not learn­ing new top­ics, they were in re­vi­sion mode.

I be­lieve that TTUTA un­der­es­ti­mates the in­tel­li­gence and re­silience of the 10+, 11- and 12-year-olds who write the SEA ex­am­i­na­tion. In March, my 11-year-old son ex­pressed his readi­ness and there­after his dis­ap­point­ment when, af­ter years spent prepar­ing for the im­mi­nent ex­am­i­na­tion, it was post­poned. I too was dis­ap­point­ed. My son un­der­stands that all schools and much of the coun­try had to be closed in or­der to treat re­spon­si­bly with the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

In re­sponse to TTUTA’s con­tention that all stu­dents could not ac­cess re­mote teach­ing, in ad­di­tion to the Minstry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s (MoE) School Learn­ing Man­age­ment Sys­tem, I am aware that at least four lo­cal tele­vi­sion sta­tions have been broad­cast­ing dai­ly SEA pro­grammes meant to as­sist stu­dents with ex­am­i­na­tion re­vi­sion.

The health and safe­ty con­cerns raised by TTUTA in its June 12 re­lease do not seem in­sur­mount­able once the Union, MoE and rel­e­vant agen­cies co­op­er­ate. Stan­dard 5 stu­dents are old enough to fol­low pub­lic health guide­lines and have like­ly been prac­tis­ing same over the past months.

Re­sum­ing class­es in Ju­ly for the Stan­dard 5 stu­dents makes it eas­i­er to im­ple­ment guide­lines re­gard­ing phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, spa­tial arrange­ments and hy­giene re­quire­ments. The school pop­u­la­tion is re­duced, with on­ly Stan­dard 5 stu­dents in at­ten­dance, con­di­tions should there­fore be safer. The dis­trac­tions which oc­cur when the full school pop­u­la­tion is present should be min­imised there­by en­abling stu­dents to con­cen­trate ful­ly dur­ing the four week prepara­to­ry pe­ri­od be­fore the Au­gust 20 ex­am­i­na­tion.

The Stan­dard 5 stu­dents need not at­tend when schools re­open in Sep­tem­ber and con­se­quent­ly SEA teach­ers can fo­cus their at­ten­tion on the stu­dents pro­mot­ed from Stan­dard 4 to Stan­dard 5.

Fur­ther, with a pro­ject­ed re­lease date of SEA re­sults in Oc­to­ber cur­rent Stan­dard 5 stu­dents will be able to en­ter sec­ondary schools this year and get at least six weeks of tu­ition be­fore the end of the first term.

I ques­tion whether TTUTA tru­ly seeks the best in­ter­est and wel­fare of af­fect­ed stu­dents when part of its above-men­tioned re­lease con­veys a very in­flex­i­ble and hos­tile tone. An­oth­er part of the re­lease refers to ex­ist­ing griev­ances with teach­ers’ terms and con­di­tions.

While these mat­ters are le­git­i­mate ones to be set­tled be­tween TTUTA and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer, I re­gard them as ex­tra­ne­ous to the im­me­di­ate is­sues at hand, name­ly, ad­e­quate prepa­ra­tion time for stu­dents and a firm date for the SEA ex­am­i­na­tion. TTUTA’s con­tention that the state is us­ing our chil­dren as “po­lit­i­cal pawns” rings hol­low.

The last 13 weeks spent wait­ing for a new SEA date have been filled with great anx­i­ety for both stu­dents and par­ents. I ask TTUTA to re­think its po­si­tion and not pro­long this stress­ful pe­ri­od—agree to this one-off prepara­to­ry pe­ri­od and Au­gust ex­am­i­na­tion date. I hope that prin­ci­pals, vice prin­ci­pals and Stan­dard 5 teach­ers an­swer the call and re­port for du­ty on Ju­ly 20 for the sake of SEA stu­dents na­tion­wide.

Par­ent of a Stan­dard 5 Stu­dent

Pe­tit Val­ley