RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA 

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter 

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt 

“I am ready. I am fo­cused. I can do this.”

This was the mantra Dis­hon Gopaul said dai­ly be­fore he start­ed his school day at St Mar­garet’s Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, which is sit­u­at­ed in one of the poor­est com­mu­ni­ties of Clax­ton Bay.

The mantra filled him with un­wa­ver­ing fo­cus as he pre­pared for the 2023 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tions.

While most of his friends played on­line games, Dis­hon took a break from his de­vices and fo­cused en­tire­ly on his stud­ies, spend­ing three hours dai­ly re­vis­ing.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Dis­hon said he had a dream of at­tend­ing the pres­ti­gious Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege.

He had seen Rais Baksh, the son of his prin­ci­pal Buitee Baksh, wear­ing the pres­ti­gious Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege uni­form in the school’s staffroom.

“I told my teach­ers that is the school I want­ed to go and they said yes, that is the right at­ti­tude to have,” Dis­hon re­called.

Last Mon­day, as he col­lect­ed his SEA re­sults, Dis­hon achieved what he had al­ways hoped for.

Dis­hon said his fa­ther Gre­go­ry worked as a bar­ber while his moth­er Melin­da worked as a clean­er with Le­gal Aid.

Both of them, he said, gave him the mo­ti­va­tion to suc­ceed. Un­like oth­er chil­dren, Dis­hon had dai­ly chores and this, he said, gave him a sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“I used to feel a bit lone­ly when I saw my friends play­ing but I knew I had to work hard,” he said.

Re­call­ing his joy, Dis­hon said, “I was thrilled that I passed Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege. I am look­ing for­ward to go­ing there. I will meet lots of new friends and I will work hard to suc­ceed,” Dis­hon said.

With a ban­ner of his name em­bla­zoned in front of the school, Baksh said Dis­hon stood as a bea­con of in­spi­ra­tion for oth­er stu­dents.

She ex­plained that St Mar­garet’s Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry was sit­u­at­ed in one of the poor­est ar­eas of Clax­ton Bay.

“We face a lot of chal­lenges. Ab­sen­teeism, chron­ic ab­sen­teeism. Lack of re­sources, ba­sic re­sources like text­books, book­lets for SEA and sup­port from home. The con­di­tions of their book. We re­al­ly want to tell par­ents that ed­u­ca­tion is the on­ly ve­hi­cle to take you out of pover­ty,” she said.

She said her team of teach­ers have been work­ing hard with the stu­dents, us­ing mon­ey from their own pock­ets.

“A lot of our chil­dren are un­der­per­form­ing. We have is­sues of il­lit­er­a­cy and nu­mer­a­cy. We have a chal­lenge where we are not get­ting our chil­dren di­ag­nosed by Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices. The par­ents are not giv­ing sup­port as well,” she said.

Dis­hon’s teach­ers, Ger­maine King and Am­ri­ta Sukram, said he was al­ways a fo­cused stu­dent. Sukram said, “I taught him in First Year and again in Stan­dard Five. He is ded­i­cat­ed to his work, and self-mo­ti­vat­ed,” she said.

King com­mend­ed Dis­hon’s par­ents for pro­vid­ing a sta­ble en­vi­ron­ment for him to suc­ceed.