Tobago reports improved SEA scores

THE NUMBER of primary school students in Tobago falling under the 30 percent mark in the SEA exam has steadily decreased over the past three years. After the release of SEA results on Thursday, the THA Education Division reported that only 7.5 percent of the students fell under the 30 percent mark, compared to 8.4 percent in 2003 and 16 percent in 2002. THA Administrator for Education, Peter O’Neil, said students are placed based on examination merits and schools chosen for the student before the exam. Students who cannot be placed in any of their chosen schools will be placed at a school nearest to their homes.

School Boards are allowed to select students meeting a certain criteria to attend their institutions. Meanwhile, an ecstatic Shirley Bobb-Phillips, principal of the St Nicholas Private Primary School in Mt Marie, Scarborough, reported that 19 of the 55 students who wrote  the exam were assigned to Scarborough Secondary School, 16 to Bishops High School and nine to Signal Hill Secondary School. Of the remaining students, four have been assigned to the Goodwood Secondary School, two to the Roxborough Composite School, one to Mason Hall Secondary School and two to schools of their choice in Trinidad. Bobb-Phillips said eight students from the school are among the top 20 students in Tobago this year.