RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Wahi­da Mo­hammed-Nar­ine is cel­e­brat­ed as one of the coun­try’s lead­ing fe­male ed­u­ca­tors, but her jour­ney has been one of re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion. Ris­ing from pover­ty to promi­nence, she has over­come nu­mer­ous chal­lenges to achieve suc­cess.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said she hoped her sto­ry of re­silience would in­spire oth­er women bat­tling sim­i­lar strug­gles to per­se­vere.

Raised in a mod­est home in Lib­ertville, Rio Claro, where fi­nan­cial strug­gles were a dai­ly re­al­i­ty, Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said she re­fused to let her cir­cum­stances de­fine her fu­ture.

In Jan­u­ary 2025, she re­ceived her high­est ho­n­our when she was award­ed the Pan African Lead­er­ship In­sti­tute (PALI) Glob­al Award in Ed­u­ca­tion­al Lead­er­ship.

Re­flect­ing on her past, Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said,“I grew up in an en­vi­ron­ment where get­ting an ed­u­ca­tion was not al­ways a pri­or­i­ty be­cause sur­vival came first.”

Her fa­ther, Shi­do Mo­hammed, and moth­er, Kati­ja Mo­hammed, re­ceived sup­port from her grand­fa­ther Solomon Ma­dath, but it was dif­fi­cult to take care of her and her six sib­lings: Fari­da, Nar­isha, In­shan, Ju­madeen, Im­ti­az, and Sha­da.

“Even then, I knew that knowl­edge was the on­ly way to break the cy­cle of pover­ty,” Mo­hammed-Nar­ine re­vealed.

De­ter­mined to suc­ceed, she poured her­self in­to her stud­ies, even­tu­al­ly se­cur­ing aid and a par­tial schol­ar­ship that paved the way for her aca­d­e­m­ic and pro­fes­sion­al achieve­ments.

“I at­tend­ed the Pit­man’s Ex­am­i­na­tion In­sti­tute, Dynell’s Sec­re­tar­i­al Col­lege, then the San Fer­nan­do Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute, fol­lowed by the Stu­dents Ac­coun­tan­cy Cen­tre (AC­CA) as well as the Com­bined Ac­coun­tan­cy Tu­tors (AAT),” she re­called.

A fam­i­ly pro­vid­ed lodg­ing dur­ing her ed­u­ca­tion­al pur­suits, but life was still dif­fi­cult.

“I vol­un­teered to as­sist with tak­ing care of an el­der­ly cou­ple, one of whom was ill and bedrid­den. I worked tire­less­ly, some­times study­ing un­der a lamp or flam­beau when elec­tric­i­ty was cut. The old sewing ma­chine was used as my desk. Those hard­ships made me stronger,” Mo­hammed-Nar­ine re­called.

She said her pas­sion for ed­u­ca­tion led her in­to the class­room. In 1994, Mo­hammed-Nar­ine re­ceived her Teacher’s Diplo­ma from Val­sayn Teach­ers’ Col­lege.

“I al­so com­plet­ed my Bach­e­lor’s in Ed­u­ca­tion and Mas­ter’s in Ed­u­ca­tion with aca­d­e­m­ic ex­cel­lence and am pur­su­ing a Doc­tor­ate at Walden Uni­ver­si­ty (par­tial schol­ar­ship),” she re­vealed.

As a de­vot­ed moth­er, Mo­hammed-Nar­ine quick­ly be­came known for her in­no­v­a­tive teach­ing meth­ods and her ded­i­ca­tion to stu­dents. This earned her more ac­co­lades as she be­gan mould­ing chil­dren us­ing the same val­ues her par­ents in­stilled in her.

“My per­son­al mot­to is that every child de­serves a chance, re­gard­less of where they come from,” she em­pha­sised. “When I see a strug­gling stu­dent, I see my­self. That’s why I go the ex­tra mile.”

In 2022, Mo­hammed-Nar­ine was recog­nised by the Gold­en Key In­ter­na­tion­al Ho­n­our So­ci­ety as part of the top 15 per cent of high-achiev­ing stu­dents across all aca­d­e­m­ic ma­jors world­wide.

How­ev­er, her im­pact ex­tend­ed be­yond teach­ing.

In 2023, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry laud­ed her for her piv­otal role in ed­u­ca­tion­al re­form, men­tor­ing young teach­ers, and ad­vo­cat­ing for poli­cies that sup­port un­der­priv­i­leged stu­dents and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of 21st-cen­tu­ry ed­u­ca­tion through digi­ti­sa­tion and blend­ed learn­ing.

At San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School, where she now serves as Act­ing Prin­ci­pal, Mo­hammed-Nar­ine spent 31 years, be­ing el­e­vat­ed from the rank of teacher, Head of De­part­ment, and Act­ing Vice Prin­ci­pal, to the post of Act­ing Prin­ci­pal on 24 No­vem­ber 2017. Un­der her charge, the school has flour­ished over the past eight years, with stu­dents achiev­ing their best re­sults ever.

In 2021, Ex­cel­lent Mag­a­zine high­light­ed San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School as the “Most Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tion to Stu­dents in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

In 2023, The Best Glob­al Ed­u­ca­tion­al Mag­a­zine (Col­orado, Ohio), in its Knowl­edge Re­view, con­ferred an hon­orary cer­tifi­cate to the school as Mo­hammed-Nar­ine was laud­ed as one of ‘The Top 10 Ed­u­ca­tion­al Lead­ers of 2023’.

She was al­so con­ferred with the ti­tle of “Most Ef­fec­tive Ed­u­ca­tion­al Leader.” In 2024, in an­oth­er mag­a­zine, the school was recog­nised as “The Most Pres­ti­gious School to Watch in the Caribbean,” and The Ed­u­ca­tion View Mag­a­zine viewed San Fer­nan­do TML as “Ex­cel­lence in Ed­u­ca­tion, Pre­mier School of the Caribbean 2024, One of the Lead­ing Pri­ma­ry Schools in the Wider Caribbean.”

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said the PALI Glob­al Award in Ed­u­ca­tion­al Lead­er­ship was among her high­est ac­co­lades. She was nom­i­nat­ed by Vasti Guyadeen, am­bas­sador to PALI and CEO of The Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce.

‘Chal­lenges im­mense but nev­er in­sur­mount­able’

Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said that de­spite her awards, she re­mains com­mit­ted to her mis­sion.

“It was nev­er about awards or ti­tles,” she said. “It was about chang­ing lives. When a for­mer stu­dent tells me, ‘Miss, be­cause of you, I didn’t give up,’ that’s the re­al re­ward.”

Be­yond the class­room, she has be­come a role mod­el for women, prov­ing that bar­ri­ers can be bro­ken with per­se­ver­ance and pur­pose. She al­so pro­vid­ed sound ad­vice for oth­er women.

“Women in ed­u­ca­tion and in lead­er­ship roles have to work twice as hard. But we must nev­er let so­ci­ety dic­tate our lim­i­ta­tions,” she as­sert­ed. “If I can do it, so can you.”

She said her chal­lenges were im­mense but nev­er in­sur­mount­able. “I al­ways put Al­lah (SWA), my supreme pow­er, in front of me for re­liance on spir­i­tu­al strength, moral di­rec­tion, di­vine wis­dom, and in­ner peace,” she re­vealed. She said her fam­i­ly du­ties were equal­ly im­por­tant.

“Be­ing a moth­er and ed­u­ca­tor at the same time was a great chal­lenge for me. Hav­ing to jug­gle my time to en­sure that my chil­dren, Shanaz and Fa­reez, re­ceived the at­ten­tion they de­served was a task. How­ev­er, with the help and sup­port of my hus­band, David, who was al­so a teacher with me for 30 years, that bal­ance was made so much eas­i­er,” she added.

She al­so ad­mit­ted it was not easy be­ing a fe­male prin­ci­pal.

“The ad­di­tion­al du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties placed on me to en­sure that we main­tained the stan­dard as one of the top schools in the coun­try could have cer­tain­ly been a de­ter­rent in my ac­cept­ing this role. How­ev­er, no mat­ter what po­si­tion I am placed in, my ob­jec­tive has al­ways been to do my best,” she added.

Mo­hammed-Nar­ine al­so had ad­vice for young women.

“As a leader, there may be times we have to make tough de­ci­sions, and we need to re­mem­ber that ‘we can please some of the peo­ple all of the time, but we can nev­er please all of the peo­ple all of the time,’” she said.

She added, “Be­ing a leader doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean be­ing alone. There is so much more you can achieve if there is col­lab­o­ra­tion and team­work.”

She said her staff at TML have done yeo­man ser­vice for the chil­dren.

“What I have al­so learnt from this jour­ney is that, as ed­u­ca­tors, we may not re­ceive the re­mu­ner­a­tion that we de­serve, but the im­pact we have in mould­ing the minds of to­mor­row cer­tain­ly comes back to us ten­fold,” she said.

“I al­so be­lieve that it’s not about do­ing things your way, but the right way!”

Hap­py with what she has ac­com­plished, with just a few years left in her ed­u­ca­tion ca­reer, Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said she plans to con­tin­ue her task of trans­form­ing lives by mould­ing young minds to see good and to do good al­ways.