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.