RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

De­spite the set­backs of COVID-19, the prin­ci­pal of Cedar Grove Pri­vate school Sha­heed Al­la­ham has urged stu­dents to take per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their ed­u­ca­tion by work­ing hard­er than ever dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

Al­la­ham was speak­ing at the school's 2021 vir­tu­al grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny held on Fri­day.

Urg­ing stu­dents to nev­er set­tle for medi­oc­rity, Al­la­ham said COVID-19 was here to stay and so stu­dents had to find a way to gen­er­ate suc­cess de­spite ad­ver­si­ty.

"As you would re­al­ize the glob­al pan­dem­ic Covid 19 has forced us to re­sort to vir­tu­al grad­u­a­tion. The world has changed due to this glob­al pan­dem­ic and we now have to ad­just to a 'new nor­mal,' " he added.

Say­ing COVID- 19 has changed the world, Al­la­ham added, "From all looks of things, it will be here for a very long time, so it is some­thing we have to live with- how we learn, how we in­ter­act with peo­ple, places we vis­it, how we so­cial­ize with peo­ple, a con­scious­ness of our per­son­al hy­giene ."

He not­ed that de­spite the set­backs, stu­dents still man­aged to do well.

"SEA stu­dents of 2021 have gone through many try­ing times in your prepa­ra­tions. You had to stay away from school for one year and a term but at least you learned and ex­pe­ri­enced what on­line teach­ing was, which the glob­al trend is now."

He said their SEA prepa­ra­tion could be de­scribed as dis­ad­van­ta­geous.

"You would have missed that one-to-one con­tact with your class teacher which is very im­por­tant in the teach­ing/learn­ing process. The ac­tu­al tim­ing for your prac­tice tests in the three test­ed ar­eas could have been com­pro­mised and be very sub­jec­tive. It was your hon­esty and in­tegri­ty to de­ter­mine the va­lid­i­ty of the test­ing," he added.

"You al­so missed the peer tu­tor­ing and learn­ing with your friends which al­ways helped the weak­er stu­dents in their SEA prepa­ra­tion," he added.

Al­la­ham told stu­dents that as they en­tered sec­ondary school, they must fo­cus.

"You will have to be more re­spon­si­ble and take full con­trol of the teach­ing/learn­ing process. Much of what you learn and how you learn will be your per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty so your role in your ed­u­ca­tion will have greater im­por­tance and more fo­cus on the self and less on the teacher," he added.

He not­ed that even though COVID-19 has put a damper on ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties the school emerged suc­cess­ful in sev­er­al ar­eas.

Mean­while, crick­eter Samuel Badree told the grad­u­ates that it was im­por­tant for them to re­main so­cial­ly ac­tive by in­ter­act­ing with fam­i­ly mem­bers. He al­so gave them a re­minder to al­ways be good and hum­ble.

"It is good to be im­por­tant but it is more im­por­tant to be good. Be good stu­dents, be good friends, good class­mates and be good cit­i­zens of sweet T&T," he added.

This is the sec­ond year that the school had vir­tu­al grad­u­a­tion.