The SEA Exam (Everything you need to know)

The SEA exam. It's a secondary school placement exam that some say is as relevant as Pastor Cuffie's hairstyle.

Placement is based on merit, choice of schools and gender.

Each school has cut-off scores, which is an established score used to filter out unqualified candidates

Apparently, these scores change from year to year.

So, based on an unofficial document from 2008, the cut-off scores for El Dorado West Secondary was 55 - 85%.

And the cut-off scores for Hillview College and St Joseph's CORNVENT were 90 to 99%.

Every year, an average 17,000 children as young as Eleven, write the SEA exam.

And, every year, parents and other educated people call for the exam to be abolished, citing the negative impacts it has on children: depression, self-harm, in some cases physical and mental abuse.

Parents suffer too.

Nothing (and I mean nothing) is quite as embarrassing as when your child passes for their last choice.

Parents console themselves by saying things like

"He didn't pass for Presentation College, eh, but at least he put his best foot forward."

And when the other parents ask if you're going to let Johnny repeat the exam, you're too embarrassed to tell them that this is the actually the second time the little ass passed for La Romaine Secondary.

Today, even scholars who aced SEA or Common Entrance call for its abolishment.

Everyone, it seems, hates it.

From time to time, serious issues regarding race, inequality and allegations of favouritism and cheating come up.

Yet, we're in 2019 and the exam is still around.

It like the PNM and the UNC. They're here to stay. No matter how hard you try to get rid of them.

Like everything else I think the SEA exam has positives and negatives.

Let's start with the positives.

SEA or Common Entrance results quickly help you establish how bright or duncy someone.

For example, when I wrote Common Entrance, my four choices were St George's College, Tunapuna Secondary, St Joseph's CORNVENT and El Dorado Secondary. My parents didn't interfere. They should have. But they didn't. The only thing they asked me was:

"What about Hillview College?"

And I said, "Nah that school have too much man."

Long story short, I didn't pass for CORNVENT.

I passed for my last choice which, back then, made me the dungiest child in the family.

But all that changed.

Time passed. I worked hard.

And, years later, my cousin Cupid failed Common Entrance twice.

So, to this day, he's the dunciest person in our family.

In fact, he still works in a gas station.

Yes; The Common Entrance Curse is real.

Everyone knows that if you fail Common Entrance the only place you can work is a gas station.

It's on the application form. You have to tick it off. I failed Common Entrance twice.

SEA or Common Entrance helps you figure out how old someone is. If someone says "Common Entrance", you know they were born before 1989. So, if she wrote "SEA" and you wrote "Common Entrance", chances are, she's too young for you.

This episode isn't an argument for or against the SEA exam.

It isn't about alternatives like zoning or alternative education systems.

This episode is a look back at the evolution of the secondary placement exam and the role of politics and religion in education.

We want to find out if, historically, secondary school placement exams have led to social and ethnic problems.

Before SEA, there was the Common Entrance Exam and before that the College Exhibition Exam.

As far back as 1835 there were denominational primary and single-sex secondary schools.

St. Mary's College

St. Joseph's CORNVENT

Naparima Girls

Presentation College.

ASJA Boys and Girls.

Vishnu Boys' Hindu College

Because these denominational performed consistently in various spheres they developed a reputation.

They became first choice schools. The prestige schools.

Since colonial times, secondary education was highly valued.

It had to be good right? It came from England. White man thing.

But, before 1960, places in schools were restricted.

Limited space, high demand and stiff competition meant some method of selection was required.

Records from back then highlight negative consequences:

Segregation.

Bright students in one class.

The duncy head ones in another.

Extra lessons. Before and after school. During lunch. During holidays.

Focus on the examination versus the full syllabus.

Heavy books. Heavy bags.

Children with bent backs.

Sounds familiar, right?

Despite criticisms, the system survived. It evolved into Common Entrance.

For political mileage, the government did something in 1960 that would inadvertently fuel division and discord.

They signed an agreement called the Concordat of 1960.

A Concordat is not a plane. That's the Concorde.

A Concordat is an agreement or treaty, especially one between the Vatican and a secular government.

For some reason the word Concordat reminds me of video games.

Understanding the Concordat requires a little bit of backstory.

Trinidad's first prime minister, Eric Williams wanted a secondary education for all and promised changes, sweeping changes that would affect denominational schools.

The government had two good reasons for wanting to curb religious interests.

One: to merge the diverse population into a functioning state and not separate children along religious lines.

And two: the government wanted to give equal opportunity to all.

Yet (according to one article) the religious schools are more blessed.

They cater to higher-income students, receive government subsidies and are more successful than state schools in raising private funds.

But the different religious interests, led by and perhaps inspired by the Catholic Church, saw these changes as a threat to their followers, communities and the coins in the collection plate.

So, the religious bodies pushed back more than Farmer Nappy's hairline.

The government, fearing the impact the Catholic Church could have on an upcoming election signed the Concordat, which also bought the government time to organise a state-run school system.

Ahhh! I now know why the word Concordat reminds me of video games.

Has someone ever asked you if you’ve ever played this game or that game, and you're like:

"Yeahhhhhhhhh I concordat already."

Now, The Concordat opened previously closed doors for school children, because, based on the agreement denominational schools would accept 80% of students based on their performance in the Common Entrance Exam.

The Concordat also assures the preservation of the character of the denominational schools.

To this day, The State assists denominational schools: paying teachers, supplying textbooks, providing security etc

And It gives denominational schools, the right to:

• veto or reject books (which is reasonable, right?)h
• handpick 20% of their annual intake regardless of a student's performance (which, rumour has it, works well for rich people with duncy children.)
• reject teachers.

 

In 2018, a Hindu school prevented a Muslim trainee teacher from wearing her hijab.

So, while Section 4 of Trinidad's constitution upholds a citizen's right to religious expression, the Concordat gives denominational schools the right to

reject teachers based on moral or religious grounds (which is reasonable, right Sat?)

Politicians talk about reviewing the document.

In the 1970s, the government built a number of Junior Secondary Schools to address the shortage of school places.

To accommodate even more students, they implemented a two-shift system.

More schools meant more votes.

Former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday vowed to get rid of the Common Entrance exam. This is back in 1998, 12 years before his former minister of education, Kamla Persad-Bissessar got rid of him.

In the UNC's 2002 manifesto, current opposition leader, Mrs Persad-Bissessar boasts about three things:

• The abolition of the common entrance.
• The introduction of the SEA exam AND universal secondary education.
• To facilitate Education for All, the UNC built 29 new secondary schools.

 

More schools. More votes.

Education went from being a privilege to being a right.

Pass or fail, every student progressed into secondary school.

Because every student was guaranteed a place, the exam was no longer about placement.

It was about who got into a prestige school.

In 2014, ALTA's founder, Paula Lucie-Smith, described the abolition of the common entrance exam and the introduction of universal secondary education as a disastrous decision that placed hundreds of non-readers in secondary schools. Students who had not mastered the primary curriculum were expected to do a secondary curriculum.

Research links delinquency and violence with illiteracy.

In an article 'Anger pervades our secondary schools' she writes 'Politics should not dictate education policies'.

So, let me get this straight. No politics. No religion.

In 2012, to develop well-rounded students, a Continuous Assessment Programme was introduced. The component was structured in a way to ensure students didn't fall below the 30 percent bracket, which happens to an average 2,500 students every year.

Believe it or not there are cases where some students scored 0 in the SEA exam, which means they didn't even sign the exam paper. Because, everyone knows, you get one mark for writing your name.

On April 1st, 2016, the current minister of education, Anthony Garcia scrapped the continuous assessment component.

Why not scrap the exam?

And why announce news like this on All Fools Day?

And, have you ever realised that if you squint, Anthony Garcia looks like Whoopi Goldberg?

The inner workings of SEA student placement are ordinarily hidden from public view. It's a blackhole, dark and incomprehensible like the bags under Gary Griffith's eyes. Despite decades of exams, there's limited data in the public domain.

For good reason, perhaps.

It's sensitive data about children.

There is however one downside.

People are afraid of what they don't understand.

Naturally the lack of data and transparency lends itself to speculation about the placement process.

Among citizens and leading thinkers.

In 2018, a detailed database of Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) results were accidentally published online.

Remember the Concordat? The 80% rule. And 20% rule that allows the school to place students as they see fit?

Analysis of the leaked data showed that in some instances denominational schools assigned as many as 33% of students out of sequence.

Which might explain the duncy head Indian boy or Catholic girl sitting next to you.

The Ministry’s Chief Education Officer described the research as flawed.

But, the can of worms had already been reopened.

Girls are outperforming boys because research shows that girls are better at solving and creating problems.

Statistics show that Students from Goodwood Gardens, West Moorings and Bayshore are more likely to pass for their first choice when compared to students from Carenage and La Horquetta.

One researcher, in a quest to understand the racial effects of the 20% rule, used SEA results published in the Express newspaper and Indian names as a proxy for the race of children. That doesn't make any sense. It sounds like it does but it doesn't. That's like saying every Indian is a Hindu or every one named Ali is a Muslim or every one named Sauce is a doubles man.

Whether or not you reject the research, it shows an astronomical high placement of children with Indian names in prestige schools, whether those schools are Hindu, Presbyterian, Catholic, or Government.

In 2011, 14 students from one class in a Chaguanas school placed in the top 100 SEA students.

Allegations of cheating surfaced.

In an letter published online and attributed to Dr Selwyn Cudjoe, he wrote to then Minister of Education, Dr Tim Gopeesingh, asking him to examine the situation to find out whether anything untoward happened because, according to a leading maths man, unless the teacher was the most brilliant teacher and unless these 14 students were the most brilliant in the world, the chances were one trillion to one that such a result was possible.

The letter never raises the issue of race, but, it's quite likely that based on the location, Chaguanas, and the surnames Cudjoe and Gopeesingh, a lot of assumptions can be made.

And these assumptions can divide Trinidad into two camps.

“The Africans are jealous of the Indians.”

“Them Indian and them could really thief you know.”

In 1988, Cro Cro, a Calypsonian, sang about corruption in Common Entrance.

Indian successes.

Africans in junior secondary schools.

References to cheating, favouritism.

Gender gaps. Racial achievement gaps.

Every year, the top students on the front page.

A news story here and there about one-or-two Beetham students who defied the odds.

Will these problems end if we abolish the SEA exam?

Or dismantle the Concordat?

Or will the trends continue?

Competition over cooperation?

Maybe you're watching this video in the distant future.

It's 2060.

Rumour has it that people still change their surnames and religions to get their children into prestige schools. There're even rumours of boys who had a sex-change and now attend all-girls schools.

Long live the Concordat.

Long live the SEA Exam.

Long live Pastor Cuffie’s hairstyle.