Derek Achong

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has agreed to re­verse its de­ci­sion to change the award to be pre­sent­ed to the pupil who was iden­ti­fied by it as the top per­former in the 2020 Sec­ondary En­trance Ex­am­i­na­tion (SEA) ex­am. 

The min­istry re­versed the de­ci­sion to award Ameer­ah Beekhoo the Pres­i­dent Medal (Sil­ver) in­stead of the Pres­i­dent Medal (Gold) af­ter lawyers rep­re­sent­ing her par­ents threat­ened to file le­gal ac­tion over the is­sue ear­li­er this week. 

In cor­re­spon­dence, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the fam­i­ly’s lawyers Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC and Jared Ja­groo, point­ed out that in Oc­to­ber 2020, the min­istry in­formed Beekhoo, a for­mer San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School pupil, that she had topped the ex­am­i­na­tion. 

They said the an­nounce­ment was made at the min­istry’s head­quar­ters and Beekhoo, who cur­rent­ly at­tends Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School, was pre­sent­ed with a lap­top, cell­phone and a Bmo­bile in­ter­net con­tract. 

How­ev­er, in a sub­se­quent let­ter sent on March 31 this year, Beekhoo was in­vit­ed to at­tend an award cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House, next Mon­day, and was told that she would re­ceive the Pres­i­dent Medal (Sil­ver). 

The fam­i­ly’s lawyers claimed that they were “nat­u­ral­ly con­fused” by the sub­se­quent let­ter. 

“We pause to note that at no time did our clients re­quest a re­view or re­mark of their daugh­ter’s ex­am script and/or place­ment and at no time were they ad­vised that any such re­view would be con­duct­ed, nor did they au­tho­rise same,” Ja­groo said. 

Ja­groo claimed that the switch in po­si­tion would cause ir­repara­ble harm, as Beekhoo had been iden­ti­fied as the top per­former pub­licly. 

“The min­istry, hav­ing pub­licly an­nounced that Ameer­ah placed first in the SEA ex­am­i­na­tion with an of­fi­cial awards cer­e­mo­ny which was cov­ered by the me­dia, can­not now, two years lat­er, sim­ply in­vite her to an­oth­er awards cer­e­mo­ny host­ed by the Head of State, Her Ex­cel­len­cy the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of T&T and ca­su­al­ly in­di­cate that she is to re­ceive a prize for plac­ing sec­ond,” he said. 

“This vi­o­lates our client’s le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion and is patent­ly un­fair. It al­so breach­es her con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pro­tec­tion of the law and equal­i­ty of treat­ment.”

Ja­groo sug­gest­ed that the min­istry should have con­sult­ed be­fore any change was made. 

“Our clients are con­cerned that such con­duct will un­der­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in the SEA ex­am­i­na­tion and ex­pose the min­istry to charges of un­fair, se­cret ma­nip­u­la­tion of the re­sults,” he said. 

Ja­groo re­quest­ed the dis­clo­sure of the rea­sons for the change and claimed that his clients may seek an in­junc­tion to ad­dress the is­sue. 

In a let­ter sent to the prin­ci­pal of Beekhoo’s pri­ma­ry school, Wahi­da Mo­hammed-Nar­ine, on Tues­day, act­ing Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Lisa Hen­ry-David stat­ed that the min­istry had de­cid­ed to re­scind the pre­vi­ous cor­re­spon­dence and award Beekhoo the Pres­i­dent’s Medal (Gold). 

“The un­due dis­tress to Ms Beekhoo and her fam­i­ly is deeply re­gret­ted,” Hen­ry-David said.

CLICK FOR MORE STO­RIES