Sama­ki Fe­li­cian 

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

De­spite hav­ing to en­dure the ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Hillview Col­lege con­tin­ued its con­sec­u­tive reign of hav­ing schol­ar­ship win­ners since 1981, pro­duc­ing eight na­tion­al vic­tors last year.

Among the eight dis­tin­guished stu­dents, past pupil Ted­dy Mo­hammed brought ex­cep­tion­al pride to the in­sti­tu­tion by win­ning the Pres­i­dent’s Medal for Ac­tu­ar­i­al Sci­ence. 

This marked Hillview’s third Pres­i­dent’s Medal in just two years, a tes­ta­ment to the school’s en­dur­ing ded­i­ca­tion to nur­tur­ing high achiev­ers.

“Well, ini­tial­ly I was in shock; I was in awe, you know. I know I worked hard; I worked con­sis­tent­ly, but I was still shocked up­on see­ing my name there as the Pres­i­dent’s Medal win­ner in Ac­tu­ar­i­al Sci­ence,” Mo­hammed said dur­ing a spe­cial awards func­tion at the Tu­na­puna school yes­ter­day.

The oth­er schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ents were Arun Ram­nar­ine, Ariel­la Khan-Rham­bal­ly, Reuel Niles, Ameer Ali, Dha­tri Ma­haraj, Satesh Singh and Ih­san Per­saud.

Hav­ing to learn via on­line school­ing was not the on­ly chal­lenge these schol­ars faced. Niles took on the mis­sion of leav­ing Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege to adapt to Hillview’s en­vi­ron­ment for Form Six.

“It was a new cul­ture, a new en­vi­ron­ment, a lot to learn. When I came here, every­body was very wel­com­ing, very kind to me and I was able to in­te­grate in­to the school, and now that I’ve won that schol­ar­ship, I could say that both schools con­tributed great­ly to my de­vel­op­ment,” Niles said.

Last year’s tri­umph was not on­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of in­di­vid­ual ac­com­plish­ments but al­so a re­flec­tion of Hillview Col­lege’s un­wa­ver­ing pur­suit of aca­d­e­m­ic ex­cel­lence.