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Tuesday, August 26, 2025

Spend time with your children, show them love

...fa­ther of top SEA stu­dent tells par­ents

by

NEWS DESK
1777 days ago
20201013
The 2020 SEA top three performers - (l-r) Sushmita Ramsawak, Anjaana Dan  and Ameera Beekhoo - collect their tokens awarded for their hard work and success from Minister of Education, Dr. Nyan Gadsby-Dolly. (Image courtesy bmobile)

The 2020 SEA top three performers - (l-r) Sushmita Ramsawak, Anjaana Dan and Ameera Beekhoo - collect their tokens awarded for their hard work and success from Minister of Education, Dr. Nyan Gadsby-Dolly. (Image courtesy bmobile)

For­mer San Fer­nan­do TML stu­dent, Ameera Beekhoo, woke up on Sat­ur­day morn­ing still in a state of dis­be­lief that she had topped the coun­try in this year’s Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment, (SEA).

The young­ster shot in­to the na­tion­al spot­light last Thurs­day when Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, Dr Nyan Gadb­sy-Dol­ly, an­nounced the news to the na­tion dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at that Min­istry’s Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters, which was held to ho­n­our 11 SEA stu­dents who had ex­celled in the 2020 ex­am­i­na­tion.

“This morn­ing she said to me, ‘dad­dy, this re­al­ly hap­pened? I can’t be­lieve this hap­pened. It’s like I’m liv­ing in a dream’,” Ameera’s fa­ther, Nick­el­son Beekhoo, said via a tele­phone in­ter­view. “So many peo­ple have been send­ing us best wish­es—peo­ple from Aus­tralia, from Eng­land. It’s still so over­whelm­ing for her. Words can't ex­plain how we feel. She’s just so hap­py.”

Beekhoo said Ameera, the old­est of his three chil­dren, and who will be at­tend­ing Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School, cel­e­brat­ed with fam­i­ly.

“When she re­turned from the news con­fer­ence, the house was dec­o­rat­ed in her ho­n­our. She is such a hum­ble child. She says she wants a fan­cy phone but be­sides that, she’s quite con­tent.”

bmo­bile part­nered with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to award the se­lect­ed stu­dents with the tools to help them smooth­ly tran­si­tion in­to on­line learn­ing as they em­bark on this next stage of life.

The “SEA Stars” were pre­sent­ed with the gift of tech­nol­o­gy in the form of a bmo­bile Tech­no­log­i­cal Sup­port Pack­age by Ger­ard Coop­er, TSTT’s Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Shared Ser­vices. The pack­age in­cludes a mo­bile de­vice, as well as a free post-paid plan and free in­ter­net for the first five years of their sec­ondary school en­rol­ment.

Coop­er, who was on hand to present the awards to the stu­dents at the event host­ed by the Min­istry com­ment­ed:

“bmo­bile have been rec­og­niz­ing SEA top per­form­ers this way for over five years and each year we are in­spired by the ex­cel­lence and po­ten­tial they rep­re­sent. We are grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to the jour­ney of these young per­sons for five years of their sec­ondary school ca­reer, as they strive to­wards even greater aca­d­e­m­ic and per­son­al suc­cess. We are pleased to pro­vide the gift of con­nec­tiv­i­ty es­pe­cial­ly this year as we are liv­ing in a glob­al pan­dem­ic, a time where every­thing has been forced to take place vir­tu­al­ly—even school.”

This year, the Min­istry did things dif­fer­ent­ly, as it al­so ho­n­oured five pupils from schools on aca­d­e­m­ic watch and two stu­dents from spe­cial-needs in­sti­tu­tions. At the con­fer­ence, Min­is­ter Dol­ly ex­plained why.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion recog­nis­es our three top SEA per­form­ers, the top male stu­dent, two stu­dents from spe­cial schools and five stu­dents who have ex­celled from schools which have been work­ing hard to im­prove over­all aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance. This year’s recog­ni­tion of out­stand­ing per­for­mance of our SEA 2020 co­hort re­flects the in­clu­sive Vi­sion 2030 so­ci­ety we strive to build,” the Min­is­ter said.

With COVID-19 forc­ing the clo­sure of pri­ma­ry schools weeks be­fore the ex­am and the sub­se­quent post­pone­ment of SEA, the class of 2020 faced unique chal­lenges.

Beekhoo shared how his fam­i­ly was able to over­come them.

“If she didn’t do well, I was go­ing to tell her, ‘this isn't the end all and be all; you still have some­thing great to give’,” he re­mem­bers. “Our fam­i­ly's foun­da­tion is built on re­li­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. We al­ways tell her to give all her prob­lems to God. It's so much pres­sure on young peo­ple to per­form well.”

He added: “My ad­vice to par­ents: If your child didn’t get their first or sec­ond choice, tell them it’s not the end of the world. My se­cret is sit­ting with my chil­dren while they do their home­work.  Even if you don’t know all the an­swers, just be there. Be their best friend.”

Beekhoo al­so re­vealed that his daugh­ter is not on­ly about aca­d­e­mics—she plays the pi­ano, is in a choir, does karate and is a self-taught gym­nast. She al­so start­ed her own soap busi­ness called Sweet Pea.

The 2020 SEA top male performer, Vineet Ramsarran, is congratulated by Gerard Cooper, GM Shared Services, TSTT. (Image courtesy bmobile)

The 2020 SEA top male performer, Vineet Ramsarran, is congratulated by Gerard Cooper, GM Shared Services, TSTT. (Image courtesy bmobile)

This year’s top male per­former, Vi­neet Ram­sar­ran of Eniath’s Montes­sori and Prep, was al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed by Min­is­ter Dol­ly for plac­ing sev­enth over­all. 

“I knew I was go­ing to place in the top ten be­cause I prayed for it, every morn­ing and every night. I feel very ho­n­oured and proud and ec­sta­t­ic to be the num­ber one male,” Vi­neet gushed.

He added that he played sports to re­lieve some of the stress from study­ing.

“I played crick­et and foot­ball every day, then I did my home­work, watched the news and went to bed.”

Ram­sar­ran’s moth­er said her son was look­ing for­ward to at­tend­ing his new school (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege), and thanked bmo­bile for their gen­eros­i­ty.

“This gift will help him tremen­dous­ly with his school­work. We ap­pre­ci­ate it very much,” she said.

SEAEducationMinistry of Education


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