By Sue-Ann Wayow
JUST do your best.
This is the message from Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly to the 19,000 plus Standard Five pupils who will write the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) today (Thursday).
Today, 19,198 children will sit the SEA across Trinidad and Tobago with 9,904 boys and 9,294 girls writing the significant exam.
The Ministry of Education on Monday during a press conference said all necessary preparations were in place and all Covid-19 protocols will be observed.
This is the third SEA examination to be written during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a short video message recorded in her garden on Wednesday, the minister held a budding flower in her hand which she believed was an amaryllis as it reminded her of the pupils sitting the exam.
Dr Gadsby-Dolly said, “It is just a bud now but I know that it is going to blossom into a beautiful flower. I am not sure of the colour just yet and when I bought it, I did not know what it would be but I knew it would be beautiful, and that reminds me of our children who are facing the SEA.”
To the pupils, she said, “This is the start of your journey this is not the end. You are going to blossom just like this flower in your next stage of life and this is the passage that you have to pass through and you just have to do your best.
“That’s all we can ask of any of you. You do your best and we know that in this next stage of life, you will blossom very much like this flower. We are all here cheering you on, supporting you to see the beauty that you become.”
Dr Gadsby-Dolly also said that as a parent herself, she remembered her days when she was a little bit fearful and felt a little anxiety that parents, teachers and pupils were feeling.
She wished God’s blessing upon all pupils telling them, “You go forth and blossom like the flower you are.”
