RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In an ex­tra­or­di­nary dis­play of re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion, Jude Jones, a pupil of Ra­mai Trace Hin­du School in Debe, topped his school in the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­ams even though he wrote the ex­am­i­na­tion with a bro­ken wrist.

The night be­fore the SEA ex­ams in March, Jones ac­ci­den­tal­ly fell off his bed.

Al­though he suf­fered swelling to his hand, he tol­er­at­ed the pain and wrote the test, pass­ing for his first-choice school–Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege.

Dur­ing an awards func­tion at the school yes­ter­day, Jones re­ceived a tro­phy for out­stand­ing per­for­mance in the SEA ex­am­i­na­tions.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view, Jones said he was al­ways de­ter­mined to tack­le his aca­d­e­m­ic hur­dles head-on. He re­vealed that his bro­ken wrist was not the worst of his chal­lenges.

Ear­ly last year, af­ter be­ing strick­en by COVID-19, Jones said he suf­fered swelling in his ap­pen­dix and had to un­der­go emer­gency surgery.

De­spite his predica­ment, Jones per­se­vered, study­ing for two hours every day as well as at­tend­ing ex­tra lessons.

“Af­ter the surgery, it healed a few months lat­er. I was so ner­vous for SEA and I don’t know how I did this, get­ting first in my school,” he said.

Recog­nis­ing the im­por­tance of ad­di­tion­al guid­ance, Jones praised his teach­ers Sir Ram­cha­ran Moti­lal and Ms Kel­ly Ram­lal for show­ing faith in him. 

“They were won­der­ful to me and so were my par­ents,” he said. Jones said he got 96 per cent in Maths, 90.62 in Lan­guage Arts which is Gram­mar, and in the ELA Cre­ative Writ­ing I got 18 out of 20,” he said. He not­ed that his class­mates al­so did well, pass­ing for first and sec­ond-choice schools. 

He al­so thanked his par­ents, Suni­ta and Ja­son Jones, who stood by his side. He said his broth­er Jake al­so mo­ti­vat­ed him.

Re­flect­ing on his ar­du­ous jour­ney, Jones said his pri­ma­ry school life was usurped when the min­istry closed down his school and they were trans­ferred in­to a tem­ple. Even though the new Ra­mi Trace Hin­du School is 90 per cent com­plete, it was nev­er re­opened.

He said the dif­fi­cul­ties filled him with the un­wa­ver­ing be­lief that hard work al­ways pays off. Jones’ dream is to be­come a pi­lot so he can have ad­ven­tures in the world and take his par­ents with him.

Hav­ing nev­er trav­elled be­fore, Jones said he want­ed to go to France. He al­so had some words of ad­vice for oth­er stu­dents who will be writ­ing the ex­ams.

“Al­ways put in a few hours of study and re­mem­ber nev­er to give up on your dreams,” he said.

Mean­while, Jones’s moth­er said he was al­ways de­ter­mined to go to school re­gard­less of the weath­er. When the Ra­mai Trace School was closed down, the pupils had to at­tend class­es in a tem­ple at Rock Road. He al­so took ex­tra lessons in Bar­rack­pore.

“Bar­rack­pore floods and whether it was rain­ing or sun­ny, he was al­ways ex­cit­ed to go to school,” she said.

Say­ing his suc­cess stands as a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion, Suni­ta said he went through a lot of pain in his jour­ney.

“We did not even know his hand was bro­ken. He was too fo­cused on SEA and when we took him to the doc­tor a week af­ter SEA we found out his wrist was bro­ken,” she re­vealed.

She said her son’s suc­cess was a re­minder that with the right mind­set and un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion, one can over­come any chal­lenge, no mat­ter how daunt­ing.