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  • 5 hours ago
The ranking of students in the top five for the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination,is being reviewed by the Division of Education.
This as one parent contested his child's SEA placing on social media after the Ministry of Education held a function for some of the top 2025 SEA students in the country last week and his daughter was left out.

Education Secretary Orlando Kerr said the matter was blown out of proportion without the facts.

Mr. Kerr spoke on Monday as the Division of Education announced one thousand and five students will sit the exam in Tobago on Thursday. More from Elizabeth Williams.
Transcript
00:00One of the things that we don't want to happen is a repeat of what happened this year because we
00:06do not want a situation where children are under a lot of psychological and emotional trauma because of this whole
00:17process.
00:18So what we are going to do, we are going to look at it and we are going to do
00:21what is in the best interest of the children.
00:23On Thursday, 1,005 students will sit the SEA exam, 497 girls and 508 boys.
00:33There are currently 1,005 students registered to sit the SEA exam in 2026 at 41 examination centers across Tobago.
00:44This year, there are 497 females and 508 males.
00:5449 candidates are registered to write the SEA that will be housed at the Scarborough Secondary School.
01:01Those are the special private candidates. There are 49 of them.
01:05We have 20 students who have been granted special concessions.
01:11So far, we have seven emergency approval.
01:17Scripts for the exam have been received.
01:19Mr. Kerr said there is a challenge in the recruitment of special education teachers across the education system in Tobago.
01:27One of the challenges that we have had in Tobago is that we are having challenges to recruit special education
01:35teachers.
01:35And that has significantly created a problem in terms of how we want to treat special education.
01:43Nonetheless, I know that we have student aides and so on at some of our schools where we have special
01:49children.
01:50We have started that program.
01:52To accommodate students who might not be ready for secondary school, there have been teacher's aides, student aides, and remedial
02:02classes implemented by the Division of Education during the July Augustification.
02:08Mr. Kerr, who was joined during a media conference on Monday by school supervisor 2, Philip Rocheford, and advisor to
02:15the Division of Education and Natasha 2,
02:18had this message for Tobago's SEA students.
02:22I want to, at this juncture, the opportunity to wish all the students who will be taking part in the
02:29exam on Thursday the best.
02:31I want you to feel comfortable that everything is in place for you.
02:37You don't have anything to worry about.
02:38All you need to do is to go to bed early enough, get some good rest, get a good breakfast
02:45in the morning, and, you know, pray if you are of that, yes, if you are of that, and go
02:54to the exam and do your best.
02:58Kerr, who is a former teacher and a tutor Tobago officer, is also encouraging parents not to put pressure on
03:05their children.
03:06Kerr's son is also sitting the SEA exam.
03:09Elizabeth Williams, TV6 News.
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