RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Deputy Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dr Aiy­na Ali has urged grad­u­at­ing stu­dents of San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School to safe­guard their men­tal health and be­lieve in them­selves, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing mo­ments of self-doubt, as they pre­pare to tran­si­tion to sec­ondary school.

Ad­dress­ing the school’s grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny at Achie­vors Ban­quet Hall, Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, on Thurs­day, Ali told the Class of 2026 that aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess should nev­er come at the ex­pense of emo­tion­al well-be­ing.

“Men­tal health is about how we think, how we feel and how we cope with the chal­lenges we face every day. Just like we take care of our bod­ies... we must al­so take care of our minds,” she said.

Ali en­cour­aged the pupils to seek help when­ev­er they felt over­whelmed.

“There will be times where you may feel stressed, wor­ried and over­whelmed. That is a nor­mal part of life. Dur­ing these mo­ments, re­mem­ber to talk to some­one you love and trust... Seek­ing help is a sign of strength, not weak­ness.”

She al­so urged them to re­main con­fi­dent in their abil­i­ties.

“Be­lieve in your­selves, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing mo­ments where self-doubt be­gins to creep in. Nev­er, ever al­low fear to pre­vent you from try­ing any­thing new.”

Ali re­mind­ed the grad­u­ates that the sec­ondary school they en­ter would not de­ter­mine their fu­ture.

“I know every­one wants to pass for their first choice. But we need to re­mem­ber the key word here—choice. Re­gard­less of the sec­ondary school that you pass for, it is your choice to make it the most amaz­ing jour­ney of your life.”

Re­flect­ing on her own grad­u­a­tion in 2009, Ali ad­mit­ted she nev­er imag­ined she would one day be­come a den­tist and lat­er Deputy Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“Life has a won­der­ful way of sur­pris­ing us,” she said. “Suc­cess is not built by peo­ple who nev­er fail. Suc­cess is built by peo­ple who refuse to quit.”

She praised San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School for pro­duc­ing well-round­ed stu­dents, say­ing the in­sti­tu­tion had built a rep­u­ta­tion for ex­cel­lence in aca­d­e­mics, lead­er­ship, cul­ture, sport and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

Prin­ci­pal Wahi­da Mo­hammed-Nar­ine, who is prepar­ing to re­tire in March af­ter 37 years in ed­u­ca­tion and 33 years at the school, used what is ex­pect­ed to be her fi­nal grad­u­a­tion ad­dress to re­flect on the in­sti­tu­tion’s achieve­ments and her own jour­ney.

“This in­sti­tu­tion has been far more than a work­place,” she said. “It has been my sec­ond home. It has been my life’s mis­sion.”

Mo­hammed-Nar­ine high­light­ed an­oth­er year of strong SEA per­for­mances, con­tin­ued dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, ex­pan­sion of co-cur­ric­u­lar pro­grammes and in­creased em­pha­sis on lead­er­ship and re­li­gious ed­u­ca­tion.

She not­ed that stu­dents had ex­celled in swim­ming, ath­let­ics, crick­et, chess, ten­nis, dra­ma, spo­ken word and aca­d­e­m­ic com­pe­ti­tions, while post-SEA ac­tiv­i­ties ex­posed Stan­dard Five pupils to sub­jects in­clud­ing cook­ing, bak­ing, ad­vanced math­e­mat­ics, French, Span­ish, tech­nol­o­gy, ocean stud­ies, art and mu­sic.

Ad­dress­ing the grad­u­at­ing class, she re­mind­ed them that they had al­ready over­come sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, hav­ing be­gun their pri­ma­ry school jour­ney dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“You per­se­vered. You adapt­ed. You grew stronger. You rose above every ob­sta­cle placed be­fore you.”

She en­cour­aged them to re­main ground­ed in the val­ues in­stilled at TML.

“Suc­cess is not mea­sured on­ly by grades. It is mea­sured by char­ac­ter. By in­tegri­ty. By com­pas­sion. By faith. And by the pos­i­tive im­pact you have on oth­ers.”

The cer­e­mo­ny al­so fea­tured a joint ad­dress from vale­dic­to­ri­ans Hana Ra­masir and Ethan Ram­lack­hans­ingh, who re­flect­ed on the class’s jour­ney from en­ter­ing school in 2019 through the dis­rup­tions of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“To­day is a day many of us dreamed about for years,” Ra­masir said. “It is a day of cel­e­bra­tion, re­flec­tion and, most im­por­tant­ly, recog­ni­tion—recog­ni­tion that we did not get here alone.”

The pair re­called on­line class­es dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, re­turn­ing to school wear­ing face masks, and the pres­sures of prepar­ing for SEA.

“For some of us, the road was steep­er,” Ra­masir said. “There were mo­ments we won­dered if we were good enough. But that did not stop us. It taught us per­se­ver­ance, courage and the im­por­tance of trust­ing Al­lah’s plan.”

Ram­lack­hans­ingh de­scribed ed­u­ca­tion as “the great­est equa­tion,” re­quir­ing pa­tience, faith and per­se­ver­ance to solve.

The vale­dic­to­ri­ans al­so paid trib­ute to Mo­hammed-Nar­ine, thank­ing her for her lead­er­ship as she pre­pares to re­tire.