Guyana secures five of eight 2013 CXC awards

Oct 25, 2013 News

Guyana has again etched its name comfortably into the annals of history having attained five of the eight Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC)’s awards available to candidates who performed exceptionally Region-wide at this year’s sitting of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Examination.
At an emergency press conference yesterday in her Ministry’s boardroom, a proud Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, revealed the names of the top performers.
Claiming the CXC award for the Overall Outstanding Achievement is Yogeeta Persaud of Anna Regina Multilateral School. With 18 grade one passes she was able to secure the second place nationally when the results were unveiled a few months ago. Her classmate Zimeena Rasheed, with 18 grade one passes and two grade two passes, was declared the top national CSEC performer, but was however awarded the Most Outstanding for the Caribbean in the area of Technical Vocation.
And although Queen’s College was not in the most outstanding circle last year, two of its students were among those bestowed with the titles of the Most Outstanding in Science and Most Outstanding in Business Studies this year. Cecil Cox with 16 grade one passes is the top performer in Science for the Caribbean, while Sasha Woodroffe claimed an equally prestigious achievement in Business Studies.
Also securing a position as the Most Outstanding candidate in Humanities is Rafena Mustapha of the Saraswati Vidya Niketan Secondary School.
The three other awards offered by CXC were those for the Most Outstanding Candidate in Visual Arts, 2-Dimensional Work; Most Outstanding Candidate in Visual Arts, 3-Dimensional Work; and Most Outstanding Candidate in Short Story Writing ,which were secured by other students within the Region.
And although Minister Manickchand is optimistic that Guyana will be able in the near future to secure all eight awards, she did note that the achievement this year is certainly significant.
“I am extremely pleased to congratulate these students on their momentous achievement. I know they have had long nights and very early mornings as they prepared themselves for excellence,” she noted. The Minister did not fail to laud the teachers and parents who, according to her, “would have worked incredibly hard to ensure that these children perform at the highest level.”
She disclosed that within the last decade Guyana has been consistently receiving awards from CXC, because of the excellent performances of students. In fact, three particular areas that have been dominated over the years have been the Best Overall in Science, the Best Business Studies and the Most Outstanding Performance in the Region. Last year Guyana was able to claim four of the eight Regional awards and this year has moved a step closer to the ambitious goal of securing all eight.
According to Minister Manickchand, “this is indeed a very proud moment for Guyana and our education system.”
In the quest to ensure that the performances remain sustainable, the Minister informed that Government will remain committed to the development of the education sector and will continue to invest significantly in the enhancement of quality education. This therefore means, Minister Manickchand said, that “as a country we will be producing more students of high quality, who will be well equipped with the essential skills that will forge a development strategy from which all Guyanese will benefit.”
The Minister further pointed out yesterday that the level of achievement and progress that a country makes is dependent on its education, which is in fact one of the reasons Government will remain focused on providing an enabling environment for students to excel. As such, she is hopeful that “this quality of excellence will serve as benchmarks, so that all students of Guyana can aspire to this quality of achievement.”