RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

An­oth­er Debe stu­dent Joshua Mo­han, of Na­pari­ma Col­lege, has copped the Pres­i­dent’s Medal (Sil­ver). This fol­lows the achieve­ment of Debe’s Gold­en Girl, Cas­san­dra Khan, 17, of Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School who won Pres­i­dent’s Medal Gold.

The Debe stu­dents, who at­tend­ed Cedar Grove Pri­vate School and Canaan Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School, in the Pe­nal/Debe elec­toral re­gion, live less than two miles apart.

In an in­ter­view, Mo­han, 17, said he was shocked that he won the Pres­i­dent’s Medal as it was not some­thing he ex­pect­ed.

Hav­ing at­tained straight As in 10 sub­ject ar­eas, Mo­han said he was in dis­be­lief when his prin­ci­pal Dr Michael Dowlath gave him the news on Wednes­day morn­ing.

Mo­han said time man­age­ment was ex­treme­ly im­por­tant in ex­celling aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. How­ev­er, he said hav­ing great friends and fam­i­ly sup­port was cru­cial in his suc­cess.

“My par­ents Mar­lene and Ra­jesh Mo­han were very sup­port­ive. My moth­er used to drop me for ex­tra lessons. I want to thank my prin­ci­pal POA teacher Joanne Go­sine and my pri­vate Span­ish teacher Mrs Sher­ry Toolsie who re­al­ly helped me a lot,” Mo­han said.

Hav­ing been born in Cana­da, Mo­han said he spent his tod­dler years with his grand­par­ents. He said while at­tend­ing Cedar Grove he ac­com­plished sev­er­al awards in read­ing, art and foot­ball. Prais­ing his Grade Five teacher, Zi­ta Bap­tiste for groom­ing him for SEA, Mo­han said he was thrilled when he en­tered Na­pari­ma Col­lege.

He joined the Scouts Move­ment as well as par­tic­i­pat­ed in swim­ming and gui­tar. Mo­han said he wrote In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, Math­e­mat­ics, Ad­di­tion­al Maths, Chem­istry, Bi­ol­o­gy, Physics, POA.

Eng­lish A, Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture and Span­ish. Cred­it­ing his suc­cess to his fam­i­ly and his faith in Lord Je­sus Christ, Mo­han said he in­tends to pur­sue med­i­cine so he can help peo­ple.

Mo­han’s moth­er Mar­lene said Joshua was a very de­ter­mined stu­dent and in Form Three he made a to­tal turn­around in his aca­d­e­m­ic life.

“I re­mem­ber when he made that com­plete turn­around. It was in Form Three and he sud­den­ly be­came fo­cused and pri­ori­tised. I saw him or­gan­ise his room and set every­thing in or­der. He start­ed to change his eat­ing habits. He cut off all junk food, no soft drink and no fat­ty foods.

He start­ed to ex­er­cise. He cre­at­ed a rou­tine where he would talk to his friends af­ter school, then do his ex­er­cise and then buck­le down with his stud­ies. He worked out a timetable and stuck to it.

He be­came more con­sis­tent and de­ter­mined. He would for­feit fam­i­ly gath­er­ings to study,” Mar­lene re­called. Fa­ther Ra­jesh Mo­han said he felt proud of his son’s ac­com­plish­ments. School prin­ci­pal Dowlath said Mo­han was one of three pupils who ex­celled in the CSEC ex­ams.

“We got three pupils in the top ten. Apart from Joshua Mo­han, Dy­lan Ali placed fourth and Bryan Gangeesingh placed ninth.