For more than 17,000 stu­dents who wrote the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA), yes­ter­day was not about text­books or re­vi­sion, but cel­e­bra­tion.

Ex­cite­ment filled malls and restau­rants as chil­dren, their faces beam­ing with pride and re­lief, spent the day with fam­i­ly and friends af­ter learn­ing which sec­ondary schools they would at­tend.

In South Trinidad, the mood at C3 Cen­tre in San Fer­nan­do was one of qui­et ju­bi­la­tion. Chil­dren dressed in their ca­su­al best strolled through the mall, some al­ready armed with book­lists and reg­is­tra­tion in­for­ma­tion col­lect­ed from their new schools.