Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The top three pupils in the 2011 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) have come from the same school. Suc­cess is not a stranger to Ch­agua­nas Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School-dubbed by pupils and staff as "The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ch­agua­nas." The school cap­tured the top two places in the coun­try with a tie be­tween a girl and boy for sec­ond place, and al­so 11 spots in the first 158 pupils who scored 95 per cent and more. Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Clifton de Coteau gave an overview of the school's per­for­mance in the SEA from 2002 to 2010, min­utes be­fore Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh's an­nounce­ment that Gabrielle Bal­go­b­in was this year's top per­former.

Cap­tur­ing sec­ond place were Adi­lah Adams and Rai Rooplal. Adams and Bal­go­b­in hugged each oth­er, while Rooplal stood smil­ing. Anx­ious par­ents gath­ered at the school's com­pound as ear­ly as 8 am and pupils from First Year to Stan­dard Five queued out­side their class­rooms. A to­tal of 158 pupils from that school wrote the ex­am. Gopeesingh, de Coteau and Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er vis­it­ed the school at the cor­ner of Tenth Av­enue and Xavier Ex­ten­sion in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day morn­ing. De Coteau said from 2002, the school al­ways se­cured spots in the first 100 and per­formed well in Na­tion­al Tests.

"I am not sur­prised that this school is do­ing well," he said. "One of the sur­veys showed that the best per­form­ing min­is­ter is the MP for Ch­agua­nas West, so if your MP is good, then the school has to be good." Gopeesingh al­so promised the school with a mu­sic room af­ter a re­quest was made by the vice-prin­ci­pal

'Ga­by' an all-round pupil

Prin­ci­pal Asha Ram­per­sad said she knew "Ga­by (Bal­go­b­in) was go­ing to pull it off." Ram­per­sad said Bal­go­b­in was an all-round pupil who dis­played a high lev­el of ex­cel­lence in all ar­eas of her school life.

"We are sure she would have made it," Ram­per­sad said. She at­trib­uted the suc­cess­es to the teach­ers' hard work. "It is an achieve­ment and the teach­ers worked very hard," she said. "This was his­to­ry mak­ing...It is the big one. "It is the first time in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go that we have had three stu­dents in the top po­si­tions." Mean­while, an elat­ed Stan­dard Five teacher Neil­la Kissoon said in 2009, af­ter 21 of her pupils scored 95 per cent and over, she set a goal this year to se­cure the top place in the coun­try.

"I am tru­ly over­whelmed at this point with such fan­tas­tic re­sults," she said. "I worked very hard and very long hours, as well as the stu­dents, and I had the sup­port of the par­ents, so with that com­bi­na­tion we knew we would get it." The 14 pupils were un­der her tute­lage. Kissoon, who has been teach­ing Stan­dard Five for 15 years of her 31 years as an ed­u­ca­tor, said she was trained in hu­man val­ues and in­cor­po­rat­ed that in­to the cur­ricu­lum and so, her pupils were well dis­ci­plined.

Pupils' per­for­mance:

• 2002-Sev­en in top 100 and sec­ond place win­ner in the coun­try;

• 2003-Four in top 100;

• 2004-Three in top 100;

• 2005-Six in top 100 and third place win­ner in the coun­try;

• 2006-12 in top 100 and six scor­ing 95 per cent and more;

• 2007-Six in top 100 and 12 scor­ing 95 per cent and more;

• 2008-Three in top 100 and sev­en scor­ing 95 per cent and more;

• 2009-13 in top 100 and 21 scor­ing 95 per cent and more; and

•2010-Eight in top 100 and eight scor­ing 95 per cent and more.