Kevon Felmine

The usu­al emo­tion­al ex­tremes dis­played by stu­dents when they re­ceived their Caribbean Ad­vance Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) re­sults were most­ly ab­sent yes­ter­day as many stu­dents saw their grades on­line. Sev­er­al prin­ci­pals re­port­ed there was on­ly a trick­le of stu­dents ar­riv­ing at schools yes­ter­day to col­lect their re­sults. At Na­pari­ma Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, how­ev­er, one group of stu­dents was cel­e­brat­ing their ex­am suc­cess­es. Vin­del Ram­sun­dar, who was ec­sta­t­ic af­ter get­ting five dis­tinc­tions, said he felt ex­cit­ed and sat­is­fied his hard work had paid off. "I was con­fi­dent. I had many sleep­less nights and I am re­lieved that every­thing is done and over with," he said.Ram­sun­dar plans to pur­sue a de­gree in chem­i­cal en­gi­neer­ing. His friend, Am­rit Sa­hadeo, was equal­ly thrilled as he re­ceived six grade "A" pass­es with four dis­tinc­tions. "It was plen­ty of stress but in the end it was worth it. I feel so re­laxed and hap­py," he said.

Prin­ci­pal Dr Michael Dowlath laud­ed his stu­dents' ef­forts and boast­ed the school had achieved a 98 per cent pass rate, in­clud­ing 100 per cent pass­es in math­e­mat­ics and sci­ence sub­jects with more stu­dents get­ting Grade "As" com­pared to last year. How­ev­er, Dowlath ad­mit­ted there was need for im­prove­ment in the Eng­lish Lan­guage re­sults. He added: "Our school has 40 ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ty groups in which many of our Form Six stu­dents are en­gaged and yet they were able to per­form ad­mirably. "Peo­ple talk about male un­der-achieve­ment and I think we have been able to break that bar­ri­er." Prin­ci­pal of AS­JA Girls' Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, Yas­min Ra­haman-Singh, com­mend­ed her stu­dents and said the school had achieved a 99 per cent pass rate.

"This year we saw big im­prove­ments in man­age­ment of busi­ness, eco­nom­ics and ap­plied math­e­mat­ics but bi­ol­o­gy has dropped a bit," she said. At St Stephen's Col­lege, Princes Town, prin­ci­pal Al­li­son Sar­jeant said her stu­dents per­formed well and she ex­pect­ed some of them to get schol­ar­ships. She said while the Up­per Six stu­dents ex­celled in all sub­ject ar­eas, the Low­er Six left room for im­prove­ment. Gem­ma Blades, act­ing vice prin­ci­pal of Pleas­antville Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive, said the school ob­tained 100 per cent pass­es in more than ten sub­ject ar­eas, with im­prove­ments in busi­ness stud­ies and sci­ences. Prin­ci­pal of Na­pari­ma Girls' High School, Pa­tri­cia Ram­goolam, said they were all elat­ed by the re­sults. "Our re­sults are com­pa­ra­ble to for­mer years," she said, adding that a fam­i­ly and team spir­it con­tributed to the school's con­tin­ued aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess.