Guyanese child prevented from sitting Trinidad’s Secondary Entrance Assessment.. Attorneys seek Education Minister’s intervention

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 April 2018, 18:19 by Denis Chabrol

Reproduced from Trinidad Newsday

PARENTS of an 11-year-old student say their child is being prevented from writing the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam, next month, and are threatening to approach the High Court for an injunction to force the Education Ministry to permit him to sit the test.

Attorneys for the child’s parents have written to Education Minister Anthony Garcia asking that the child be immediately returned to his regular Standard 5 class and allowed to write the SEA exam.

According to the attorneys – Jagdeo Singh, Dinesh Rambally and Kiel Tacklalsingh – the child attended school in Trinidad for seven years but was recently told that because he was not a citizen of this country, and does not have a student’s permit, he will not be able to write the SEA exam.

The child and his parents are Guyanese nationals. The attorneys say he has already made his school choices with the hope of being placed in one of the four after he is successful at the exam.

“The child has been studying and working with great effort towards succeeding at the SEA exams,” the minister was told.

The child currently attends a primary school in Carapichaima and last month was removed from the Standard 5 class and placed in Standard 4.