A boy has finally broken the girls’ recent dominance by topping this year’s Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination.
The announcement was made by Education Minister Anthony Garcia at yesterday’s post-Cabinet media briefing at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s.
Garcia said the result of the exam will be available to all primary schools next Wednesday (July 4) at 9 am.
“This year, 19,139 students wrote the exam, of which 9,694 were males students and 9,445 were female students. It is important for me to say that this year the student who placed first in the exam…the student who scored the highest was a male student. For some time we have been noticing our girls have been outperforming boys where first place is concerned.
“This year a boy has been placed first and the girls occupied the second and third places.”
He said he had no idea which primary school the first place winner attends and what school he has passed for.
From 2013 to 2017 the top performers in the SEA exam were girls, the last being Lexi Balchan.
The last time a male topped the SEA was in 2010, when Ashaish Mohammed was named the country’s best performing pupil in the exam. He passed for his first choice Naparima College.
The following year, Gabrielle Balgobin topped the exam and passed for her first choice St Augustine Girls’ High School (SAGHS) and since 2012 the top SEA pupil had passed for Naparima Girls’ High School.
That trend started with Rebecca-Ann Jattan (2012) and included Sandyha Sookhoo (2013), Shivanna Chatoor (2014), Anusha Saha (2015), Caitlyn Brooker (2016) and Balchan last year.
Garcia said 65.5 per cent of the students attained above 50 per cent in the test.
In Maths, he said 58.8 per cent of the students scored above 50 per cent, while in English Language 57.9 per cent captured above 50 per cent, with 55.5 per cent obtaining above 50 per cent in creative writing.
Having done an analysis of the results, Garcia said students under the age of 13 who scored below the 30 per cent mark will have to re-sit the exam, while students above 13 will be placed in secondary schools with a special curriculum. Garcia said 2,595 students scored below 30 per cent.
He said measures such as effective supervision and guidance will be put in place for students who will be asked to repeat in 2019, while they have achieved success with students above the age of 13 who were placed in secondary schools last year.
“This was instituted last year and I must say with considerable success.”
Comparing last year to this year’s results, Garcia said there was a slight improvement in math and language arts.