The success of members of the Grant Memorial Presbyterian School Chess Club in this year's SEA examinations, including first placed Sandhya Sookhoo, is "concrete proof that chess is an aid to academic performance," David Martin, president of GMPSCC, told the Guardian yesterday. Martin pointed out that among the top 200 places, ten were students of Grant Memorial and six of these were members of the school's chess club.
Among the six is Mikel Martin who is the current National Under-12 Chess Champion. The others are Karissa Sonoo, Aarti Sirju, Andria Joseph and Aidan Mohammed.
Martin noted that Grant Memorial also had several chess club members who passed for their first choice school. "All this is further evidence of the beneficial role that chess can play in the education of our youngsters," Martin added.
A computer businessman and parent, Martin started the GMPSCC about three years ago. As a one-man effort, it quickly grew into the country's largest and best equipped chess club.
"Our success would have been greater," he said.
"If I had more chess tutors. It is very difficult for me alone to coach over one hundred students for one and a half hours every week."
Martin said the academic success of the club's members simply confirmed what researchers in other countries had already discovered, "but for some strange reason the powers that be here are yet to recognise it."
Martin, who was recently elected first vice president of the T&T Chess Association, is hoping that the new executive would use its influence to "put the Chess in Schools programme back on the front burner."
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