DENOMINATIONAL school boards are reporting ‘phenomenal’ preliminary results from the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination which were released overnight, online.
This in spite of a small decline in the English Language Arts score announced by Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly in a June 27 release.
There was a fall from 61.6 per cent in 2023 to 53.5 per cent in 2024.
Gadsby-Dolly told the Newsday via WhatsApp on Friday, that in the coming days, the Ministry of Education would analyse the exact areas which were of difficulty.
“That will identify what areas need particular focus. This is important to assist teachers in meeting the needs of the students,” she said.
A total of 18,177 students wrote the 2024 SEA exams.
General Secretary of the Maha Sabha Vijay Maharaj said he was extremely happy with the results, especially in the “hot-spot” area of Enterprise where the Lendore Hindu School is located.
He told the Newsday that of the 1,668 students from 43 Maha Sabha primary schools who sat the exams, there was a pass rate of 97 per cent for five- and seven-year schools.
“The results were better than last year. As a matter of fact, I have a number of children who got 257 and 258 marks, which might be among the highest scores in the country. I also have students who scored 100 per cent in mathematics, English language arts writing and English language arts.
“Even schools I thought would not have done well, they have excelled. When you look at a school like Lendore Hindu, which is in Enterprise and has a 99 per cent enrollment of Afro-Trinidadian students, the result was phenomenal.
“Fourteen of the 44 students who wrote exams from this school, passed for seven-year schools and 28 for five-year schools. Two would have to re-sit the exam.
“Similarly, at Don Miguel Hindu, Barataria, of the 35 students who wrote, 33 passed for seven-year schools and two for five-year (schools).
“That is the kind of results you get when you have parental involvement. It has nothing to do with being a prestige or non-prestige school. It has to do with family support.
“When you get those kinds of results, you must want to beat your chest, but I don’t have to do that. I know what we are doing, and the manner in which we are doing it is correct.”
Catholic School Board CEO Sharon Mungroo said, based on preliminary reports, principals from their 118 primary schools were generally quite happy with the results.
“We have seen very few re-sits and few remedial recommendations, which means that the children have performed well. One school in particular, Maracas RC is ecstatic as for the first time, three of its students have been placed at CIC.
“The principal there has been doing a systematic implementation of something called the quality assurance system. You were seeing the results before, but I think she is now seeing the results in the exams.”
Mungroo, however, expressed surprise that the results were better in mathematics than in English language.
She believes that may be consistent with the lock
