From SEA to Success: What Are We Really Preparing Our Children For?

By Camille McMilan Rambharat

I know of many families whose concern about leaving Trinidad and Tobago was leaving behind a robust system of education. For me and for our children, it was a high-pressure system. If you didn’t do well in Common Entrance, you had a second chance to rewrite the exam or were placed in post-primary and later had the option of private school. There were cracks in the system, yes, but there was still a sense of structure and accountability.

Today, I’m heartbroken watching that very system crumble not because of harshness, but because of apathy and inaction. The new Minister of Education recently presented the facts and the proposed action. In 2025, about 18,000 students sat the SEA exam. Of those, 6,000 scored below 50 per cent. And 2,000 (more than one in ten) scored below 30 per cent. These aren’t just statistics. These are children. Children whose confidence is being shattered before their potential has had a chance to unfold. Pushing those with low scores only makes it worse for them.

We didn’t get here overnight. And no, the system didn’t collapse the week before SEA. This has been brewing for years. And just like in professional sports where performance is tracked, reviewed, and coached from early, we must start intervening from Standards 1 to 3, not scrambling in Standards 4 and 5. No child should be pushed into a secondary school without a chance of succeeding. The Minister’s proposed actions on the data could be a step in the right direction.

As a career and mentorship specialist, I’ve worked with highly talented people pushing toward that next level of success. And let me tell you, talent alone is never enough. Even the best need guidance, correction, support, and strategy. Brian Lara didn’t just stumble into breaking world records. He had technique, discipline, coaching, and intentional investment over years.

Yet here we are, moving thousands of children through an education system that offers neither sufficient preparation nor real support. We’re promoting students who aren’t ready mentally, emotionally, academically, and then wondering why the outcomes are dismal.

In elite sport, athletes have psychologists, physiotherapists, batting coaches, and nutritionists. Are we treating the intellectual and emotional growth of our children with the same care and seriousness?

Confidence leads to success. And few things crush confidence faster than being thrown into a test or a life for which you’re unprepared. As people of faith, we are called to protect and nurture the vulnerable. Proverbs 22:6 reminds us: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

But that training requires more than love. It requires systems. It requires community. And it requires courage.

We need to ask ourselves:
-Are we adequately supporting our teachers, many of whom are burnt out and under-resourced?
-Are we tracking performance in meaningful ways?
-Are we prepared to hold back a child—not as punishment, but to give them a fighting chance?
-Are we prioritising true understanding, or just expecting students to memorise and repeat?

Our children’s journey didn’t come with guarantees. But what they received was an education system that invested in their whole development, not just their ability to pass a test.

Let us not accept an education system that simply moves children along whether they’re ready or not. Let us demand systems of excellence and equity. In commemoration of The Mighty Sparrow’s 90th birthday, we must remember the wisdom in his Calypso classic, Education: “Children go to school and learn well. Otherwise, later on in life, you go catch real hell…”

It’s not just a catchy hook. It’s prophetic. That warning still echoes to this day. And it’s on us, parents, policymakers, educators, and people of faith to ensure our children don’t just go to school but learn well.
Because if we want to raise a generation of confident, capable, and conscious leaders, we must start by giving them what they rightly deserve today: an education that empowers. If not now, when?