Hillview stu­dents Ryk­er Har­richa­ran and Nish­ka Ma­haraj were both award­ed the Pres­i­dent’s Gold Medals for scor­ing top marks in the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tions (CAPE) last year.

In recog­ni­tion of their ac­com­plish­ments, and that of their fel­low peers, which cat­a­pult­ed Hillview Col­lege in­to record-break­ing sta­tus with 13 Gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ships, the col­lege ho­n­oured their open and ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship win­ners dur­ing an awards cer­e­mo­ny yes­ter­day.

Shreya Ram­per­sad, an ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship win­ner in Cre­ative and Per­form­ing Stud­ies, be­came emo­tion­al in her speech, as she thanked her teach­ers for guid­ing her since Form Three. She al­so praised her fam­i­ly for giv­ing her strength along the way.

“To my par­ents and sis­ters, your love and sup­port have been my pil­lars of strength, your sac­ri­fices and en­cour­ag­ing words have fu­elled my de­ter­mi­na­tion to reach new heights. This achieve­ment is as much yours as it is mine,” Ram­per­sad said with tears fill­ing her eyes.

Al­though se­cur­ing an ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship for busi­ness stud­ies, Sachin Ma­haraj en­cour­aged stu­dents to not let aca­d­e­mics de­fine them and en­joy their youth while they still can.

“Don’t let the pres­sures of ex­ams get to you at all, be­cause aca­d­e­mics isn’t every­thing at the end of the day. I know that’s a bit, you know, weird to hear from me, a schol­ar, but I tellin’ ya, your aca­d­e­mics isn’t every­thing. You need to en­joy your days at Hillview; but just know that when time comes, you have to lock in, and you have to do your work,” Ma­haraj said.

Al­so in at­ten­dance was Tu­na­puna MP Es­mond Forde, him­self a for­mer Hillview stu­dent. He con­grat­u­lat­ed the awardees and recog­nised the in­deli­ble mark the col­lege has made on the coun­try.

“For the last num­ber of years, last prob­a­bly 20 years or so, Hillview has been at the top, as it re­gards to schol­ar­ship win­ners,” he said.

Thank­ing God for the ground-break­ing ac­com­plish­ment, the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Syn­od of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ter­rence Ward, ap­plaud­ed the ef­forts teach­ers and par­ents had made in the lives of the schol­ars.

“To the teach­ers at Hillview, we thank you for your com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion to the stu­dents. To par­ents, con­grat­u­la­tions, your many years of love and per­sis­tence has borne fruit, and God’s favour has been with your chil­dren,” Ward said.

Pres­i­dent’s Gold Medal win­ner Har­richa­ran was the top per­former in En­vi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies, In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, Math­e­mat­ics and Nat­ur­al Sci­ences. Nish­ka Ma­haraj, the oth­er win­ner of the pres­ti­gious award, was tops in Busi­ness Stud­ies, Gen­er­al Stud­ies, Lan­guage Stud­ies, Mod­ern Stud­ies/Hu­man­i­ties and Tech­ni­cal Stud­ies.

Hillview re­ceived sev­en open schol­ar­ships and six ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ships.