RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For Ra­jeev Ram­per­sad, at­tain­ing ten Grade Ones did not come with­out sac­ri­fice.

For two years, while prepar­ing for his Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) and Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) ex­am­i­na­tions, the Shi­va Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege stu­dent was al­so help­ing his fa­ther, Siew­nar­ine Ram­per­sad, and old­er broth­er Vashist Ram­per­sad care for his bedrid­den grand­fa­ther, 81-year-old De­onath Ram­per­sad. Then, in Au­gust last year, De­onath died.

Ram­per­sad was left grap­pling with the emo­tion­al loss while still hav­ing to fo­cus on his stud­ies.

De­spite the chal­lenges, he emerged from the 2026 CAPE ex­am­i­na­tions with ten Grade Ones, sur­pass­ing even his own ex­pec­ta­tions.

His achieve­ment in­clud­ed Grade Ones in Math­e­mat­ics, Chem­istry, Physics and Caribbean Stud­ies, as well as Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion (PE)—a sub­ject he took on as an ex­tra and com­plet­ed in just nine months.

“I know how dif­fi­cult it was. It was like a dif­fer­ent chal­lenge com­ing in to do an ex­tra sub­ject in one year,” Ram­per­sad said.

His ac­com­plish­ment was un­ex­pect­ed.

“I knew how much ef­fort I put in, how much hard work went in­to it, and I had told my­self that I would be sat­is­fied with what­ev­er grade I got.”

Ram­per­sad said Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant to him as he is pas­sion­ate about sports.

He said he ini­tial­ly con­sid­ered tak­ing PE but feared it would be too much along­side his ex­ist­ing work­load.

Af­ter dis­cussing it with his par­ents and teach­ers, he de­cid­ed to give it a chance.

He said that with­in the first week, how­ev­er, he was ready to quit.

“I felt like it was just too much at once,” he re­called, but his par­ents and teach­ers en­cour­aged him to per­se­vere.

Look­ing back, Ram­per­sad said he was grate­ful they did.

“I feel like oth­ers would see the po­ten­tial in me more than I will see it in my­self at times,” he said.

“So I am very grate­ful that they did that be­cause now I was able to achieve all my sub­jects.”

Ram­per­sad said his suc­cess was built on dis­ci­pline rather than mo­ti­va­tion.

“Mo­ti­va­tion will come and go, but dis­ci­pline is what keeps you mov­ing,” he added. He said he al­so drew strength from his hard­work­ing par­ents.

Ram­per­sad said his moth­er, Vidya, worked in Port-of-Spain, while his fa­ther, Siew­nar­ine, worked as a maxi-taxi dri­ver ply­ing the Siparia to San Fer­nan­do route.

He said both left home at 5 am each morn­ing to work, so he and his broth­er be­came in­de­pen­dent from a young age.

Vidya said she was proud of the way her sons had grown in­to self-suf­fi­cient young men.

“They were taught how to be on their own, self-suf­fi­cient,” Vidya said, adding that as they be­came teenagers, they be­came very self-mo­ti­vat­ed.

Mean­while, Siew­nar­ine said Ra­jeev’s re­sults were the cul­mi­na­tion of years of hard work and fam­i­ly sup­port.

He cred­it­ed the Metronomes Sports and Cul­tur­al Club for up­lift­ing youths in their area, say­ing there were al­ways fun ac­tiv­i­ties planned for mem­bers.

Siew­nar­ine said he and his wife had al­ways tried to give their sons the tools they need­ed to suc­ceed with­out plac­ing un­nec­es­sary pres­sure on them.