RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

De­spite top­ping the na­tion in the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) and earn­ing a place at her first-choice school, Na­pari­ma Girls’ High, Sand­hya Di­vya Ma­haraj is call­ing for the abo­li­tion of the ex­am she just con­quered.

The Macaulay Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School stu­dent be­lieves the SEA puts harm­ful pres­sure on young stu­dents and should be scrapped, as it af­fects men­tal health.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at her Pe­nal home over the week­end, Ma­haraj said, “I think SEA should be ban­ished. We are just eleven and twelve years old. We shouldn’t be go­ing through signs of anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion.”

Ma­haraj said this year’s ex­am left many of her class­mates drained and emo­tion­al. She al­so spoke of added pres­sure from be­ing re­peat­ed­ly told that she could nev­er pass for Na­pari­ma Girls’ High.

“Some peo­ple used to say I can’t pass for Naps,” she re­called.

“Even some fam­i­ly friends. But they didn’t know how much I was study­ing. That hurt, but I didn’t let it stop me.”

For her, the re­al bat­tle wasn’t against the bul­lies—it was against the pa­per in front of her.

“In the end, the bat­tle is be­tween you and that pa­per. So, I just kept push­ing and put my best foot for­ward.”

She ad­mit­ted that she was not al­ways among the top stu­dents, even though she had won tro­phies for sports and spelling.

“I wasn’t al­ways the bright­est child in my class. I used to feel anx­ious for tests. I like to get things right. I didn’t like fail­ing,” Ma­haraj said.

But fail­ure, her moth­er Suri See­gob­in-Ma­haraj said, was some­thing they al­ways talked about open­ly at home.

“I told her fail­ure is a very im­por­tant part of life. You will have your highs and your lows. And the lows are where you learn. Fail­ure teach­es you some­thing. It doesn’t la­bel you,” See­gob­in-Ma­haraj said.

The moth­er spoke of sleep­less nights, long dri­ves to Macaulay, where Ma­haraj at­tend­ed school, and their de­ci­sion to keep her there for the fam­i­ly sup­port the rur­al vil­lage of­fered.

“We tried to give her bal­ance. She liked to play Roblox, and we let her. School was heavy. Some­times she came home at half five in the evening. So, when she said, ‘Mom­my, I’m tired,’ we’d stay overnight in Macaulay just to let her rest.”

See­gob­in-Ma­haraj of­fered a mes­sage to oth­er par­ents: “Com­mu­ni­cate. Look for the signs. Speak to your chil­dren. And re­mind them that fail­ure is not the end—it’s the be­gin­ning of some­thing new.”

Ma­haraj’s fa­ther, Ke­shan Dev Ma­haraj, helped her de­vel­op a dif­fer­ent cop­ing strat­e­gy—med­i­ta­tion.

“When you are calm, you have clar­i­ty,” he ex­plained.

“You can fo­cus and do your best. Any­time you get worked up, you lose that. So, we start­ed med­i­ta­tion to­geth­er.”

He said he and his daugh­ter would sit qui­et­ly at the end of the day—no pres­sure, no judge­ment—just breath­ing, still­ness, and pres­ence.

“She would come home af­ter a long day and ask, ‘Dad­dy, are we med­i­tat­ing to­day?’” he re­called.

“And we would. We made time for that calm. Be­cause that’s where strength comes from.”

He be­lieves calm­ness is a tool more chil­dren need.

“These things are not lux­u­ries. They’re tools. We weren’t de­signed to be go­ing non-stop like ma­chines. If we don’t slow down, we start break­ing down.”

Ke­shan re­called the ear­ly morn­ings and long com­mutes.

“I used to bun­dle her up in blan­kets at 4 am to take her to Macaulay. There were Sat­ur­day and week­day lessons. She missed time for crafts and dance, and even gave up class­es af­ter her dance teacher passed away.”

Now that Ma­haraj has topped her school and the na­tion, she hopes to be­come one of T&T’s best lawyers or doc­tors.

“Each one of these pro­fes­sions in­volves help­ing peo­ple, and that’s what I want to do,” she said.

Mean­while, the prin­ci­pal of Macaulay Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry, Ray­mond Su­ru­jbal­ly, said the en­tire school was proud of Ma­haraj. He thanked his staff for con­tribut­ing to the school’s suc­cess, not­ing that af­ter the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, they be­gan strate­gis­ing how to get the best re­sults for all stu­dents.

Last week, Ma­haraj, along with Nicholas Dol­ly, Xavier Teles­ford, Kailash Di­als­ingh and Ash­lyn Ramkissoon, were ho­n­oured by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion for their ex­cel­lence in the SEA ex­am.