Just as the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam results were being released the Ministry of Education was hinting at the termination of this examination.

The schools that excelled for the first time must wonder if the odds will forever be stacked against them. Notably schools in the Laventille and Beetham areas are among that lot.

The successes of these schools could only have been possible through significant initiatives and the dedication of teachers who found new ways to help their pupils to learn and to achieve the results everyone wanted. 

It may well be that this method of selecting a secondary school for a child needs revision. It is the job of the Ministry to continually monitor this process.

But the SEA achievements of children in what are often described as “depressed areas” (where families are deprived socially and economically) suggest that some things were done right. A revisiting of the SEA will need to take account of all that occasioned these results. 

Government’s intent and our children’s successes keep on the table questions about the fairness of the education system. Will the new form of assessment allow for an equal opportunity for children in all parts of the country?

It must be understood that simply offering the opportunity to all children to write exams or to be assessed at different points in their primary school experience does not make for equality. What can be done to make the system a fair one for all our children?

Living outside the box

These questions go beyond the bounds of the education system and require a holistic approach to societal development.

Each child has to be seen as an individual who has come into the world gifted by God in unique ways, each one desiring to do well. The pictures of our children in newspapers and on television after the SEA results have been announced—depicting their unbounded joy or their faces etched with deep sadness—should convince us all of this.

In a way, it should not astonish anyone that pupils at Laventille Girls’ Government Primary did well. When they do not do well it should disturb us because it means that their gifts and talents are not being nurtured, that the negatives of their environment have contrived to stifle their particular abilities, their hopes and their dreams.

Today’s gospel challenges all to think and live outside the box. Jesus does not confine himself to the carpenter’s box. Back home in the synagogue on the sabbath, Jesus’ teaching astonishes those listening to him.

They really take umbrage that good news should flow from a carpenter and refuse to accept him. They ask: “Where did the man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been granted him, and these miracles that are worked through him?” Sadly, St Mark says: “He could work no miracle there … He was amazed at their lack of faith” (Mark 6: 1-6).

Each child has the potential to contribute to the life of the nation in positive ways. Whatever form a new assessment takes, our children need a fair chance to discover their gifts and talents.

Not to allow them that opportunity is to cheat them and us. It is to place obstacles to God’s reign among us, from which no one is excluded.