Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Ten-year-old Eme Eton has com­plet­ed her Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­am­i­na­tions, mark­ing a rare aca­d­e­m­ic mile­stone at her age.

Speak­ing af­ter fin­ish­ing her fi­nal pa­per, Eton said she was re­lieved to have com­plet­ed the process.

“I’m hap­py. It’s over with. I was able to fin­ish every­thing,” she said.

She sat Span­ish and His­to­ry, with her fi­nal ex­am, His­to­ry, writ­ten yes­ter­day at St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary School.

She said both sub­jects went well when asked about the ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Both were good. I en­joyed it. I hope I did good,” she said.

Eton ad­mit­ted that prepar­ing for the ex­am­i­na­tions ini­tial­ly left her feel­ing un­cer­tain.

“I was kind of scared. I thought I would not be able to do it, but I picked my­self up, and I was able to do it,” she said.

She cred­it­ed her fa­ther, sis­ter and Span­ish teacher, Willon Nurse, for sup­port­ing her through­out the process, de­scrib­ing her teacher as some­one who guid­ed her stud­ies and en­cour­aged her to keep go­ing.

“He helped me study every­thing and en­cour­aged me not to give up,” she said.

Eton said her friends were sur­prised to learn she was sit­ting CSEC ex­am­i­na­tions at such a young age, and that her achieve­ment even in­spired some of them to con­sid­er do­ing the same.

“My friends, they were sur­prised that I was able to do this. They want­ed to try it as well af­ter they no­ticed I had done this as well,” she said.

She al­so spoke high­ly of her fa­ther’s sup­port dur­ing the prepa­ra­tion pe­ri­od.

“He has been en­cour­ag­ing me to study and has been help­ing me. And I love that of him,” she said.

Look­ing ahead, Eton said she hopes her ex­pe­ri­ence will in­spire oth­er young peo­ple to pur­sue their dreams.

“If they have a dream, they can al­ways achieve it. Just try it,” she said.

Her fa­ther, Dr Je­re­mi­ah Eton, de­scribed the jour­ney as both in­tense and ful­fill­ing, while ex­press­ing re­lief that the process had con­clud­ed.

“I feel ex­cit­ed, de­light­ed and re­lieved be­cause it’s been a jour­ney of a kind,” he said.

He ex­plained that the ad­di­tion­al work­load re­quired sac­ri­fices, in­clud­ing time away from reg­u­lar school­ing.

“This was ex­tra work for her. So, she had to skip school some­times to pre­pare,” he said.

Dr Eton said the fam­i­ly now looks for­ward to her re­turn­ing to reg­u­lar school life.

“So, we feel re­lieved and ex­cit­ed­ly wait­ing for the out­come,” he said.

He de­scribed his daugh­ter as a dri­ven and cu­ri­ous child with am­bi­tious goals.

He added that her will­ing­ness to take on chal­lenges set her apart.

“She’s al­ways as­pir­ing to do some­thing dif­fer­ent,” he said.

Dr Eton, who is orig­i­nal­ly from Nige­ria but has lived in Trinidad and To­ba­go for 16 years, said his daugh­ter was born in Trinidad and con­sid­ers her­self ful­ly Trin­bag­on­ian.

“Of course, she’s a Tri­ni,” he said. “She’s a prop­er Tri­ni, born here.”

Eton’s favourite song is “Tri­ni to the Bone.”

She will be writ­ing the Sec­ondary As­sess­ment Ex­am­i­na­tion next year.