Garcia: Students ready for SEA changes

Anthony Garcia
Anthony Garcia

Education Minister Anthony Garcia says students who wrote the 2019 Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examinations had been “adequately prepared” for those changes introduced in this year’s exams.

In a media statement, which featured an accompanying voice clip, Garcia said the new SEA syllabus had been “prepared, evaluated and pre-tested” with the relevant teacher training done in 2017.

“The SEA 2019 had some changes in comparison to the examinations written in previous years. These changes were implemented as a result of the review that is done on the examination every four years and as a result of recommendations coming out of the national consultation on education.

“To facilitate the changes that were coming to the exam, a new SEA syllabus was prepared, evaluated, pre-tested and teachers were trained and, subsequently, the final syllabus was distributed to the national community in 2017.”

He said the changes were given to then Standard Four students who would have been writing the exam in 2019.“This allowed for the students to be adequately prepared for the changes that were to come in the 2019 sitting of the SEA including the variety of questions contained in the mathematics paper.”

Over 18,000 students wrote the SEA exams last Thursday.And regarding the “level of difficulty” which some students experienced during the mathematics section, he reiterated that the SEA is a “placement examination” which is used to “assess students for assignment to a secondary school.”

Garcia said, “Every examination from SEA to CAPE contains some level of difficulty for each student and must have a wide variety of questions from simple recall to some that require greater thought and analysis. The ‘challenge’ that some may have identified this year is the critical thinking/reasoning element that was added to the paper. “This component was added as a result of responses and concerns raised during consultations on the inability of students to think critically and problem solve. Let me assure concerned parents that a standard part of the marking process is the analysis of student responses. This permits for allowances to be made to the mark scheme if it is realised that there were challenges with particular questions for a high percentage of students. This process is already under way by CXC.”

Garcia also pointed out that no concerns had been raised regarding the administration of the exams.

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"Garcia: Students ready for SEA changes"

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