Girls outnumber the boys in SEA passes

ALL OF the 20,814 students who wrote this year’s SEA Examination have been placed in Government, Government-assisted and private secondary schools, the Ministry of Education said in a release yesterday. Overall, 87 girls and 43 boys (there are ties) occupy the first 100 SEA places, while 2,433 or 11 percent of the SEA candidates scored 30 percent or less in all subject areas. Reanna Gobin, a student of Grant Memorial Presbyterian, placed first in the national exam. She is the second student from that school to top the SEA, following in the footsteps of Safa Omardeen who placed first in the 2000 SEA. According to the Ministry, ten students from Grant Memorial placed among the top 100 in the assessment. There was a three-way tie for second place between Nerala Bhaggan of  San Juan Presbyterian, Israel Ramjohn of Morvant Anglican and Gabrielle Fernandes of Holy Faith Prep. In addition, 13 students tied for fifth position.

The Ministry provided the following statistics:
* 11,707 or 56 percent placed at five and seven-year schools, of which 5,664 were boys and 6,043 were girls.
* 7,966 or 38 percent placed at three-year schools
* 260 or one percent placed at SERVOL Life Centres
* 881 or four percent placed at private secondary schools (these were places bought by the Ministry)
* 46 or 0.2 percent of students’ placed at a pre-vocational centre.
* In the Creative Writing component of the paper, 12 percent or 2,497 students attained full marks, while 2.0 percent or 417 students got zero.
* In Language Arts, 112 or 0.5 percent of the students scored between 96-100 marks and 325 or 1.6 percent scored between 0-5 marks.
* In the Mathematics paper, 1,456 or 7.0 percent of the students scored between 96-100 marks and 567 or 2.7 percent scored between 0-5 marks.

The Ministry said more students did better in Mathematics this year, while students did not do as well as in Language. School principals collected the results of SEA 2004 yesterday morning from Education District Offices throughout the country. Education Minister Hazel Manning pointed out yesterday that there are 21,995 places available in public and private secondary schools in TT, hence she assured that 20,963 places are available in government and government assisted Secondary Schools. She said 1,032 places are available in private secondary schools, the Servol Junior Life Centres and in one pre-vocational school located in Princes Town.

The Minister explained that students are assigned to secondary schools on order of merit, students’ choice of school, gender and residence. Male and female students are assigned to schools independently. The residence of a student she added, is used only when students have not been successful in gaining a place of their choice. Low achievers said the Minister, have been placed in schools where there are special programmes and remedial teachers available to address their needs. The Minister said principals of primary and secondary schools have been provided with information on the performance of students placed in their schools and parents and guardians will be provided with a record of their child’s performance as well as the procedures for queries and transfers.