SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

T&T stu­dents shone on Thurs­day dur­ing the re­gion­al awards for CAPE and CXC, cap­tur­ing four of the six top CAPE awards.

The award cer­e­mo­ny for the 2021 ex­am­i­na­tions were held yes­ter­day, host­ed by the Vir­gin Is­lands in a vir­tu­al cer­e­mo­ny.

The stu­dents and their teach­ers were in­vit­ed to the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of- Spain for the cer­e­mo­ny.

The awards went to Joel Phillips of Hillview Col­lege, for the Most Out­stand­ing Per­for­mance in Math­e­mat­ics. Phillips re­ceived Grade I in all of his sub­jects– Ap­plied Math­e­mat­ics Units 1 and 2, Physics Units 1 and 2, Pure Math­e­mat­ics Units 1 and 2, Caribbean Stud­ies and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies.

St Joseph Con­vent stu­dent Zoë Gon­salves won the award for Most Out­stand­ing Per­for­mance in En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence. She too achieved Grade I in all sub­jects in­clud­ing En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence Units 1 and 2, Bi­ol­o­gy Units 1 and 2, Ge­og­ra­phy Units 1 and 2, Caribbean Stud­ies and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies.

Ni­kee­sha Nan­coo, of Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege, won the As­so­ci­a­tion of Char­tered Cer­ti­fied Ac­coun­tants (AC­CA) award for Most Out­stand­ing Per­for­mance in Busi­ness Stud­ies. Nan­coo achieved Grade I in a va­ri­ety of busi­ness sub­jects, in­clud­ing Ac­count­ing Units 1 and 2, Eco­nom­ics Units 1 and 2 and Man­age­ment of Busi­ness Units 1 and 2. She al­so achieved Grade I in Caribbean Stud­ies and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies.

Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School stu­dent Jesse Ram­per­sad won the award for Most Out­stand­ing Per­for­mance in Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, achiev­ing Grade I in Ap­plied Math­e­mat­ics Units 1 and 2, Bi­ol­o­gy Units 1 and 2, Chem­istry Units 1 and 2, Physics Units 1 and 2, Pure Math­e­mat­ics Units 1 and 2, Caribbean Stud­ies and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies.

In the CXC ex­am­i­na­tions, St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School stu­dent Danielle Suite won the award for the Most Out­stand­ing Per­for­mance in the area of Cre­ative and Ex­pres­sive Art.

Suite achieved Grade I in Mu­sic, The­atre Arts, Vi­su­al Arts, Eng­lish A, In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, Math­e­mat­ics and Tech­ni­cal Draw­ing and Grade II in Physics and Ad­di­tion­al Math­e­mat­ics.

Stu­dents were al­so award­ed for out­stand­ing per­for­mance in in­di­vid­ual sub­jects, with Bish­op Anstey High School East stu­dent Anaya Fe­lix was award­ed for the Most Out­stand­ing Short Sto­ry.

AS­JA Boys’ Col­lege, Char­lieville, stu­dent Joshua Brai­ley won the award for the Most Out­stand­ing Per­for­mance in Vi­su­al Arts 2D.

An­oth­er Bish­op’s stu­dent, Tashana Ri­ley won the As­so­ci­a­tion of Char­tered Cer­ti­fied Ac­coun­tants (AC­CA) Award for Most Out­stand­ing Per­for­mance in Prin­ci­ples of Ac­counts.

Guyana’s Queen Col­lege cap­tured the awards for CSEC and CAPE School of the Year 2021.

Ad­dress­ing the awardees, Vir­gin Is­lands Pre­mier, An­drew Fahie urged the stu­dents to con­tribute to the re­gion.

Fahie said the qual­i­fi­ca­tions they have earned from CXC were very valu­able and sought af­ter by for­eign em­ploy­ers and uni­ver­si­ties.

“I urge you to con­sid­er it a no­ble du­ty to help to build your home coun­try and to help to build this re­gion. At some point, if you trav­el abroad for fur­ther ed­u­ca­tion or work, please re­turn and make a con­tri­bu­tion to your home,” Fahie said.

He said the re­gion’s fore­fa­thers were not af­ford­ed the ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able to stu­dents to­day.

“If you con­sid­er the his­to­ry of our is­lands and how the peo­ple who in­hab­it them came to live there, your fore-par­ents, you would see that for the most part, cir­cum­stances were thrust up­on them and those cir­cum­stances put them and their gen­er­a­tion at a dis­ad­van­tage.”

Fahie said re­gion­al lead­ers have tried to cor­rect this by pro­vid­ing the high­est qual­i­ty of ed­u­ca­tion for their young cit­i­zens by part­ner­ing with CXC.

“Thus the stu­dents who pass through these pro­grammes are equipped to be very dy­nam­ic this is some­thing the uni­ver­si­ties and em­ploy­ers re­al­ize, this is why they like to grab up our tal­ent­ed stu­dents, that is why they find that our Caribbean ed­u­cat­ed peo­ple are good per­form­ers in the work­place and all of this has to be cred­it­ed to the fine work of the per­sons who work in the back­ground of the CXC,” Fahie said.