All systems have been put in place for today’s Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) in which 18,215 pupils have been registered to write the exam.
Seeking to allay the fears of pupils and their parents, Education Minister Anthony Garcia has assured that public utility companies, transport agencies and even the health services were on standby to assist if any hiccups arose during the process.
Speaking during a press conference yesterday at the Ministry of Education, St Clair, officials said 24 additional distribution centres had been set up to facilitate schools that were situated far away from the respective District Education Office.
Chief education officer, Harrilal Seecharan, said 545 centres had been established to ensure that principals could collect the exam papers and submit scripts in a timely manner. Of this figure, 141 are government centres; 345 are denominational centres and 59 private centres.
Scheduled to begin promptly at 9 am, the 9,163 boys and 9,052 girls will write the maths exam during the first 75 minutes. This will be followed by a 30-minute break after which students will re-enter the exam room to write the 75-minute English language exam.
Garcia and Seecharan said special concessions also had been put in place to accommodate 225 pupils who had been identified as differently-abled, including those requiring braille; extra time for slower students; persons who would require medication during the exam; persons requiring more frequent bathroom breaks and persons who have to be seated apart from other students.
Seecharan said that was done “to ensure each child was provided with the equal opportunity to perform at their best.”
Providing some insight into the training and preparation that had gone into ensuring that invigilators, monitors and quality assurance officers were trained in time for today’s exam, Seecharan said special attention had been paid to the physical environment to preserve the students’ comfort.
Identifying “lights, water and furniture” as one area, Seecharan said the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) had also set up a hotline for centre managers to utilise in an emergency.
Referring to the recent decision by the T&T Unified Teachers Association Conference of Delegates that teachers were not required to supervise the national exam as it did not form part of their remit, Seecharan said there were approximately 4,500 and 5,000 people involved in today’s exercise.
This includes school principals, teachers, ministry officials, quality assurance observers and travelling officers who have all undergone intensive training in the last couple weeks.
Security measures have also been increased to eliminate the potential for cheating by both students and teachers. Garcia said any student found to be cheating would be immediately disqualified and each case would be assessed individually to determine the way forward.
Additional systems have also been introduced to aid in the security of student scripts after the exam before they are handed over to the Caribbean Examinations Board (CXC) within the next two weeks to be marked.
Even though the ministry removed the Continuous Assessment Component (CAC) from the curriculum weeks ago, Seecharan said this year’s marking system will take into account the students’ individual scores at the SEA exam as well as their performance grades at the CAC before it was scrapped.
Next year’s SEA exam is expected to once again feature creative writing, maths and English language.
Pressed to say if the potential Form One students will be on the receiving end of a laptop computer or any other electronic device to aid in the teaching and learning process, Garcia said discussions were ongoing and that there was “more to come on this.”
Assured that each student would attain a place at a secondary school, president of the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA) Zena Ramatali urged all students “to bloom wherever you are planted.”
Ramatali and president of the T&TUTA, Devanand Sinanan, expressed satisfaction in the ministry’s preparedness measures as they all wished the students good luck today.