Government is concerned about the low performance scores recorded in this year's Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam throughout certain educational districts and has mandated the Ministry of Education to look at ways this can be improved immediately.
Presenting an analysis of the 2016 SEA results three days after it was released nationally Education Minister Anthony Garcia admitted that student performance in certain districts had proven to be "troubling" for officials who examined the data.
Of the eight education districts across both islands, Garcia said the picture painted by the results recorded in the Port-of-Spain and Environs Education District was worrying.
Explaining that this particular education district spanned the region of Diego Martin to Laventille, Garcia said 20 pupils throughout the district had managed to secure places on the top 200 list.
However, 19 of the 20 students were from private primary schools with the lone student coming from a government/government assisted primary school.
This year's results also confirmed that girls continued to outperform boys as 140 girls placed in the top 200, versus 60 boys.
Claiming that prescriptive measures would be introduced to ensure a general improvement overall, Garcia said Government was focused on providing quality education from the preschool to tertiary level.
Adding that worrying trends were also observed from schools along the East/West Corridor, Garcia pointed out that the numbers of students writing the national exam each year continued to decline.
Approximately 18,180 students wrote the exam this year compared to 18,310 in 2015.
Providing the public with the national average attained in the areas of Maths, English Language and Creative Writing, Garcia said there had been a slight increase in Maths as the marks moved from 60.4 per cent in 2015 to 60.9 per cent in 2016; while they experienced a decline in English Language from 61.7 per cent in 2015 to 55.5 per cent in 2016.
Revealing the names of the first ten students in the SEA exam, Garcia and Minister in the Ministry of Education Dr. Lovell Francis agreed that pupils from government and government-assisted schools were performing well generally as they had managed to secure quite a bit of spots on the top 200 list.
Lovell said such information was a "misnomer" and that it was at the secondary level that such disparity was highlighted.
Regarding the leak of the SEA results, Garcia said a committee had been appointed to investigate the veracity of these allegations.
The committee will be led by the ministry's deputy permanent secretary Sharon John, an investigating officer from within the ministry, two members from the ministry's legal team, the ministry's assistant security manager Lancelot Samuel and an independent information technology expert from outside the ministry.
On Tuesday, Garcia announced that the results had been known to persons before the official release date of July 5.
With three weeks in which to complete a "very thorough investigation," Garcia once again sought to the national community that the exam was not compromised.
Following the preliminary investigation, the minister said, "When the results of these investigations are conclusive, we will then decide if disciplinary action is necessary."