RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A day af­ter re­ceiv­ing news he had copped the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) 2024 Pres­i­dent’s Medal award, Na­pari­ma Col­lege stu­dent Regi­nald Mo­hammed said his suc­cess came from con­sis­tent­ly tack­ling his weak­est sub­jects first.

Bal­anc­ing study with hob­bies and keep­ing his faith in God, Mo­hammed be­lieves achieve­ment is not on­ly about per­son­al ex­cel­lence but al­so about sup­port­ing his peers and lift­ing oth­ers along the way.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at his school on Fri­day, Mo­hammed shared some of his study habits.

“I al­ways start­ed with the sub­jects I was weak­er in. That was my main thing.”

Mo­hammed earned 12 Grade Ones in Physics, Chem­istry, Bi­ol­o­gy, Eng­lish Lan­guage, Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture, Math­e­mat­ics, Ad­di­tion­al Math­e­mat­ics, Prin­ci­ples of Ac­counts, Prin­ci­ples of Busi­ness, Ge­og­ra­phy, In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, and Span­ish. He said the medal was al­ways in his mind as a goal and was the re­sult of years of steady ef­fort.

“When I came home from school, I would take a few min­utes to re­lax and then start with what­ev­er sub­ject I need­ed to fo­cus on,” he ex­plained.

“It wasn’t just about the sub­jects I was good at. I tar­get­ed my weak ar­eas first, then lat­er in the evening, I got to the ones I en­joyed. That bal­ance made a big dif­fer­ence.”

Out­side of the class­room, Mo­hammed said it was just as im­por­tant to stay ac­tive and in­volved. He was part of the Sci­ence Club, the Lit­er­ary and De­bat­ing So­ci­ety, the IT Club, and the In­di­an Cul­tur­al Club. He al­so rep­re­sent­ed his school in foot­ball and vol­ley­ball, while study­ing vi­o­lin with his moth­er and sis­ter for the past ten years.

“Study­ing alone can put a big strain on you,” he said.

“So, for me, the vi­o­lin, sports, and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties gave me that bal­ance. It helps you to re­lax but al­so builds dis­ci­pline and fo­cus.”

Mo­hammed said his suc­cess is al­so tied to his role at school as a men­tor to younger stu­dents.

“At Na­pari­ma, we al­ways push each oth­er to do well. It’s about be­ing your broth­er’s keep­er. I’ve been sup­port­ed by the com­mu­ni­ty here, so I try to give that back to the younger ones.”

His ground­ing, how­ev­er, came from his roots in Debe, where he grew up sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly and farm­ing.

“I spent a lot of time with my grand­par­ents when I was younger. They are farm­ers, so I was out­doors a lot. That shaped me be­cause they worked hard every sin­gle day. Every­body in the com­mu­ni­ty is hard-work­ing, and that in­spired me to do the same,” he said.

Faith, he added, has al­ways been cen­tral.

“The first thing for me is faith in God. That is the num­ber one thing in achiev­ing any­thing. When things get chal­leng­ing, al­ways prayers.”

He cred­it­ed his moth­er, Shar­da Sookram-Mo­hammed, as his great­est mo­ti­va­tion.

“For the past two years, and re­al­ly for the past ten, my moth­er made sure I was in the best po­si­tion to ex­cel,” he said.

“From tak­ing me to vi­o­lin every Sun­day to mak­ing sure I had all the op­por­tu­ni­ties in aca­d­e­mics and ex­tracur­ric­u­lars, she has al­ways been there. She is the most hard-work­ing per­son I know, and she is the one I look up to.”

Mo­hammed al­so high­light­ed the role of his teach­ers.

“All my teach­ers con­tributed to who I am to­day. I can’t name just one, be­cause every sin­gle one of them pushed me in dif­fer­ent ways,” he said.

His record goes be­yond CSEC. He rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go at the Na­tion­al Youth Sci­ence Camp in West Vir­ginia in 2024, join­ing stu­dents from across the world in a pro­gramme host­ed by the US Em­bassy and NI­HERST. He al­so placed first in the Ro­tary Club Peace Day Com­pe­ti­tion and the HOMEE Pho­tog­ra­phy and Es­say Com­pe­ti­tion. He earned a Bronze Award in the Duke of Ed­in­burgh In­ter­na­tion­al Award and Cer­tifi­cates of Dis­tinc­tion in Math­e­mat­ics Olympiads.

Now in Sixth Form, he is pur­su­ing Pure Math­e­mat­ics, Ap­plied Math­e­mat­ics, Physics, Chem­istry, and Caribbean Stud­ies. He hopes to study abroad and be­come an elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer.

“It com­bines every­thing I like—maths, chem­istry, and physics—in­to some­thing I can ap­ply to make a change in the world,” he said.

Look­ing back on the jour­ney, Mo­hammed said the les­son is clear: “It’s not just about do­ing well for your­self. It’s about lift­ing oth­ers up along the way.”

Mean­while, his moth­er laud­ed him for his ded­i­ca­tion, say­ing he al­ways had ex­cel­lent study habits. She said he was al­ways will­ing to help oth­ers. She said their grand­par­ents, Nand­lal and Gan­ga­daye Sookram, as well as grand­moth­er Jhun­matie Mo­hammed, all worked hard to make Mo­hammed suc­cess­ful.

Vice chair­man of the Pres­by­ter­ian Sec­ondary School Board, Chris­t­ian Dookoo, com­mend­ed Mo­hammed for his achieve­ment. He said Na­pari­ma Col­lege has con­sis­tent­ly pro­duced out­stand­ing pupils be­cause of co­op­er­a­tion among all stake­hold­ers.