Suggestion after SEA online results website crashes – Return to in-person collection

QUESTIONS have been raised about the efficiency and reliability – or lack thereof – of the digitised system used on Monday for dissemination of the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam results. This after the Ministry of Education's online platform crashed.

The crash came as parents of the 18,889 students who sat the exam, all tried to log-in to the system from 12 noon. The failure of the system left many students and even parents greatly stressed as they had to wait, in some cases, for hours, to get the results.

At St Gabriel’s Primary School, a parent who was leaving with her weeping child, said when the system crashed she and the child hustled to the school in the hopes of getting the results. However, even the principal did not have a list of the schools the children passed for.

Instead of the usual throngs of parents and students and long lines of vehicles parked up outside school zones, schools in and around San Fernando were quiet with very few people and even fewer children seen.

Several schools locked their gates with only a security guard keeping watch from the inside.

Principal of Cedar Grove Primary School Shaheed Allaham said he had to deal with many distressed parents and students who came to the school trying to get the results. Of the online results system, he said, “It was not one hundred per cent successful.”

He said parents and students were further stressed when they learnt he as principal, had no hard copy to share the results. Allaham said he was not able to access the results until well after 1 pm.

Chairman of the Presbyterian Primary School Board Vickram Ramlal questioned why the ministry was insisting on an online delivery system when clearly the infrastructure for this was not in place.

“If the Ministry wants to digitise, they must have infrastructure in place and a portal or system that could take the load of thousands logging in at the same time.

“Bearing in mind that there are large sections of this country without internet connectivity and lots of students still don’t have devices to access their results. Principals should have been given a hard copy of the results so students and parents who fall into this category could have gotten the results at schools.”

He said most Presbyterian-run primary school principals got hard copies around 1.30 pm, but by 2 and even 3 pm, there were still children unsure of which secondary school they had passed for.

“It would not surprise me if at 4 pm, some children still had not received their results because some schools have shaky internet connection, depending on geographical location. Principals experienced problems to access the master sheet.”

Ramlal said he could not understand the ministry decision not to provide principals with hard copies early on Monday, as was done in the past.

Allaham said his experience over the years is that both parents and students prefer to come to schools to get the results.

“I don’t know if I am old or traditional, but children look forward to receiving something tangible, a hard copy in an envelope with their full profile. When this happened there was so much euphoria, elation and celebration.This year it was docile.”

Ramlal, a former teacher, principal and school supervisor said from a psychological perspective, there is merit in in-person collection of results.

“When a child does well, you are able to celebrate with your peers. If a child gets disappointing results, his/her peers are also there to comfort them. With this downloading system, a child who needs such support will only have a parent or guardian and you can see that there will be fallout from a psychological viewpoint."

He said the ministry should rethink this strategy going forward.

Fast food chains and commercial enterprises which usually cater for the day of SEA results were also affected by the change.

At Chuck E Cheese in Chaguanas, marketing manager Joan Dookeran said although there were SEA results day specials, there were no crowds. In fact, there were no students showing up.