Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

Hours af­ter po­lice made a ma­jor drug bust in the Ca­roni Swamp, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mind­ed young peo­ple that a life of crime is not the way for­ward.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the awards pre­sen­ta­tion for out­stand­ing CSEC and CAPE per­for­mances in the 2025 May-June ex­am­i­na­tions at Gov­ern­ment Plaza, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the path­way out of pover­ty is not crime, but ob­tain­ing an ed­u­ca­tion.

“The on­ly way to lift your­selves up, to pre­pare for the world of work and to build a suc­cess­ful, pros­per­ous life is not through nar­cotics, drug run­ning or gun run­ning...The key, the pass­word, is ed­u­ca­tion. So, all of you, please, that is the on­ly pass­word,” she told the 18 awardees from across the re­gion.

Trinidad and To­ba­go won ten of the top re­gion­al CXC awards.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the out­stand­ing stu­dents that these dis­tinc­tions re­flect not on­ly aca­d­e­m­ic abil­i­ty but al­so dis­ci­pline, sac­ri­fice and a be­lief in per­son­al po­ten­tial.

“Whether through in­no­va­tion, artis­tic ex­pres­sion, sto­ry­telling or mas­tery of tech­ni­cal and aca­d­e­m­ic skills, each awardee has shown what is pos­si­ble when tal­ent is nur­tured and sup­port­ed,” she said.

She said every cer­tifi­cate award­ed rep­re­sents long hours of prepa­ra­tion, the guid­ance of teach­ers, the sup­port of fam­i­lies and a com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence.

Most im­por­tant­ly, she said, it rep­re­sents the promise of a new gen­er­a­tion ready to lead and con­tribute to the re­gion’s fu­ture.

Mean­while, reg­is­trar and CEO of the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC), Dr Wayne Wes­ley, called on ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers to en­sure the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor is ac­ces­si­ble to all, es­pe­cial­ly vi­su­al­ly im­paired stu­dents, and urged mem­ber states to sign on to the Mar­rakesh Treaty.

The in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment pro­motes equal ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion for blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed in­di­vid­u­als, pro­vid­ing a le­gal frame­work for the re­pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of books in ac­ces­si­ble for­mats, in­clud­ing cross-bor­der shar­ing among sig­na­to­ry coun­tries.

He not­ed that the num­ber of stu­dents sit­ting the ex­am is grow­ing.

“We at the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil have done a pletho­ra of ac­tiv­i­ties and pro­vi­sions for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. Braille, au­dio as­sis­tance, ex­tra time, you name it, we have done it,” he said.

In 2024, the reg­is­trar said 3,400 stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties sat the ex­am, and this year, more than 3,500 stu­dents did so.

Dr Wes­ley said CXC aims to cre­ate an in­clu­sive en­vi­ron­ment that al­lows stu­dents to be­come the best ver­sion of them­selves.

This in­cludes sup­port­ing the co­hort of stu­dents af­fect­ed by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, which dev­as­tat­ed parts of the re­gion in late Oc­to­ber.

The Ja­maican na­tion­al said some ar­eas were “to­tal­ly de­stroyed,” and CXC will do what­ev­er it can to fa­cil­i­tate ex­am­i­na­tion re­lief where it is need­ed most.

Al­so ad­dress­ing the af­ter­math of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa was vice-chan­cel­lor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and chair­man of CXC, Pro­fes­sor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les, who said young peo­ple will have to start all over again, es­pe­cial­ly in the west­ern ar­eas of St Eliz­a­beth and West­more­land.

“You see all of those schools com­plete­ly de­stroyed...but what Melis­sa has done for us is to hold up a mir­ror and hav­ing hold up this mir­ror what we saw is that this part of Ja­maica is plan­ta­tion Ja­maica...it is the area of Ja­maica where peo­ple have been left be­hind, where peo­ple are liv­ing in board hous­es, poor in­fra­struc­tur­al roads that is re­al­ly no more than dirt and it’s a ter­ri­ble 19 cen­tu­ry world that has not come for­ward in­to the 21 cen­tu­ry,” he said.

He added that in this vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ty, young peo­ple and their el­ders were left ex­posed, but he said they will re­build, and the young peo­ple will get the sup­port they need to get back on track.

Top CSEC Awardees

• ↓Obin­na Ojiro, Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege – Caribbean His­to­ry

• ↓Gabriel­la Chaves, St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain – Ge­og­ra­phy

• ↓Se­le­na Mo­hammed, Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary – Vi­su­al Arts (3D)

• ↓Anush­ka De­onath, AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do – Eng­lish A (Short Sto­ry)

• ↓Lud­mil­la Guen­ther, Holy Name Con­vent, Port-of-Spain – Vi­su­al Arts (2D)

Top CAPE Awardees

• ↓Vic­tor Ba­boolal, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do – Nat­ur­al Sci­ences

• ↓Saiesh Ram­per­sad, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas – Math­e­mat­ics

• ↓Ri­an­na Neck­les, Bish­op Anstey & Trin­i­ty Col­lege East Sixth Form – ICT

• ↓Jabari Brath­waite, San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary – En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence

• ↓Jer­maine Moore, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas – Busi­ness Stud­ies (AC­CA)