Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning says pupils from T&T are out­per­form­ing oth­er stu­dents in neigh­bour­ing Cari­com coun­tries. De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the Dayanand Memo­r­i­al Vedic School in Pe­nal yes­ter­day, where top SEA pupil Danille Sie­u­nar­ine was ho­n­oured, Man­ning said he had pe­rused the per­for­mance of pupils in oth­er coun­tries and found that the per­for­mance of T&T stu­dents were of a high­er qual­i­ty.

"I have been spend­ing time look­ing at the re­sults in the Caribbean area and T&T is do­ing far bet­ter than all the oth­er ter­ri­to­ries in the Caribbean at this time," Man­ning said. He said this was be­cause of the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts of the Gov­ern­ment, par­ents, teach­ers and stu­dents. The Prime Min­is­ter al­so shared some of his child­hood mem­o­ries with guests who he com­mend­ed for turn­ing out to wel­come him.

Hug­ging Sie­u­nar­ine's younger broth­er David, Man­ning said he was once in David's po­si­tion be­cause his sis­ter had once won top place. Say­ing that T&T's stu­dents were for­tu­nate to ben­e­fit from free ed­u­ca­tion, Man­ning said when he was a child he used to walk for more than a mile to get to school. "I had to walk dai­ly from St An­drew's Av­enue in Co­coyea to get to my pri­ma­ry school in San Fer­nan­do and I was un­hap­py to do it...It was too far to walk," Man­ning said. He said his moth­er used to pur­chase 50 pounds of flour so she could use the bags to make his school shirt. Al­though the con­di­tions were not ide­al, Man­ning said he was able to over­come those chal­lenges.