Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Prin­ci­pal of Macaulay Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, Raf­fiena Ali-Boodoos­ingh, has ex­pressed con­cerns about the high lev­el of school dropouts due to preg­nan­cy and peer pres­sure. She was speak­ing at her school's grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny on Mon­day. Ali-Boodoos­ingh called on par­ents not to treat their chil­dren like adults, say­ing par­ents had a right to check their chil­dren's book bags. She called on the grad­uands to car­ry with them the qual­i­ties of kind­ness, love, peace and re­spect which they learnt at Macaulay. "We have preg­nant chil­dren in our schools. Our chil­dren are fac­ing bul­ly­ing and ha­rass­ment from their peers and it is time for par­ents to show sup­port," Ali-Boodoos­ingh said.

She added that char­ac­ter-build­ing must be a foun­da­tion stone for all in­sti­tu­tions, adding: "If you want to climb the lad­der of suc­cess, don't wear a cos­tume of fail­ure." Ali-Boodoos­ingh al­so gave spe­cial awards to Lochan Omar, who showed progress aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly even though his fa­ther died. An­oth­er pupil, Josi­ah Ar­joon, was al­so giv­en a spe­cial award for dili­gence. Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Or­a­to­ry Foun­da­tion, Deb­o­rah Jean-Bap­tiste, who de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress, urged the pupils to show en­durance, re­silience and hon­esty as they en­ter high school. She said: "Stay fo­cused and push your­self to be the best. Don't set­tle to just pass your ex­ams. You must be a con­queror and strive for ex­cel­lence."