The ad­min­is­tra­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must be high­ly com­mend­ed for re­sum­ing pub­lic recog­ni­tion of out­stand­ing per­for­mances at the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tions, a prac­tice stopped since 2020 by the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion.

This year, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion gave awards for scor­ing the high­est marks in the 2025 ex­am­i­na­tions to the fol­low­ing stu­dents: Sand­hya Boodram Ma­haraj (Macaulay Gov­ern­ment); Xavier Teles­ford (pri­vate can­di­date); Nicholas Dol­ly (Ch­agua­nas Gov­ern­ment); Kailash Di­als­ingh (Ex­change Pres­by­ter­ian) and Ash­lyn Ramkissoon (Jor­dan Hill Pres­by­ter­ian).

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath says this ad­min­is­tra­tion is com­mit­ted to build­ing a mer­i­toc­ra­cy and will “recog­nise ex­cel­lence,” adding that top-per­form­ing stu­dents are “an in­spi­ra­tion to their peers and the na­tion.”

Ex­act­ly. I have re­peat­ed­ly said, “In all hu­man en­deav­our, not every bats­man is a Bri­an Lara or Sachin Ten­dulkar. But were it not for the gift­ed, the less tal­ent­ed would not know their own pos­si­bil­i­ties. The many strive for the heights set by the few and some achieve a mea­sure of re­mark­able suc­cess them­selves. The en­tire so­ci­ety ben­e­fits.”

And what was the rea­son giv­en by the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion for stop­ping the recog­ni­tion of out­stand­ing per­for­mances? Then Ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter, Dr Nayan Gads­by-Dol­ly, thought it re­sult­ed “in un­healthy com­pet­i­tive­ness and pres­sure placed on pupils.” And Dr Row­ley said the an­nounce­ment of top stu­dents is “whol­ly and to­tal­ly un­nec­es­sary and on­ly cre­ates dis­cord.” What a shame!

But lis­ten to this qual­i­ty doc­tor, Ter­rence Far­rell: “Ex­cel­lence is a val­ue for which we must strive to­geth­er with Eq­ui­ty; and ex­cel­lence is en­cour­aged by healthy com­pe­ti­tion in the class­room, on the sports field, and in the mu­sic fes­ti­vals.”

And hear this qual­i­ty T&T Guardian ed­i­to­r­i­al: “For decades, the re­silience and sac­ri­fice of the top per­form­ers have in­spired thou­sands of oth­ers.”

In­deed. A na­tion should not be de­nied the in­spi­ra­tion that comes from the aca­d­e­m­ic bril­liance of its young­sters. Don’t we pub­li­cise achieve­ments in sport with stu­dents proud­ly pic­tured with tro­phies and medals? Don’t we al­so cel­e­brate, with front-page sto­ries and pho­tographs, the ju­nior ca­lyp­so monarch and win­ners of chil­dren’s car­ni­val, stu­dent chut­ney and parang com­pe­ti­tions? Why hide ex­cel­lence in aca­d­e­mics? What is the dark­ness here?

Un­der the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion, for two years run­ning, there was no elab­o­rate com­men­da­tion of out­stand­ing stu­dents at A lev­els, when pre­vi­ous­ly, our young ex­em­plars were cel­e­brat­ed on front pages with min­is­ters pos­ing with beam­ing stu­dents.

Sup­pres­sion signs sur­faced when five pupils from Trinidad and To­ba­go emerged among the most out­stand­ing can­di­dates in the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) Ju­ly/Au­gust 2020 sit­ting. The awardees were all from the ‘pres­tige’ schools: Ab­dur-Rah­man Mo­hammed, of Na­pari­ma Col­lege; Xavier Joseph, of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas; Rhi­an­na Ra­goo­nanan, of Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege; An­jali Ma­haraj of Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School; and Kim­ber­ly Seer­at­tan, al­so of Lak­sh­mi Girls’. As I ob­served then, “the chil­dren seem spurned by of­fi­cial­dom, their achieve­ment un­der­played, pushed in­to the back­ground. Why? Did it of­fend some­body? Are we on the path to the de­struc­tion of ex­cel­lence in this coun­try?” The min­istry then said their com­men­da­tions were not ful­ly car­ried in the me­dia. No­body was fooled.

Af­ter my con­stant crit­i­cism, things changed in 2023, when it was most heart­en­ing to see that year’s schol­ar­ship win­ners at the Ad­vanced Lev­el Ex­am­i­na­tions (CAPE) cel­e­brat­ed. The me­dia led the way, fol­lowed a few days lat­er by the Ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter, who vis­it­ed Holy Faith Con­vent, Cou­va, spoke to the stu­dents and was pho­tographed in the pa­pers with the school’s schol­ar­ship win­ners, in­clud­ing one of the two Pres­i­dent’s medal­lists, Makaya Hug­gins. The oth­er win­ner, Saira Mo­hammed, of St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High, was abroad, al­ready at uni­ver­si­ty.

It is good to con­grat­u­late young stu­dents for their ex­cel­lence. They pro­vide pro­found hope for the na­tion. With their achieve­ments, they say to us we can emerge from the deep dark­ness in­to which we have sunk as a coun­try. They can in­spire the na­tion’s adults at all lev­els-in of­fices, streets and fields- to achieve in their own ar­eas, the ex­cel­lence the chil­dren have at­tained in theirs.

We must al­so thank the par­ents for the care, sac­ri­fice, and home en­vi­ron­ment which make stu­dents’ aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment pos­si­ble; and con­grat­u­late the schools, teach­ers and prin­ci­pals for im­part­ing the knowl­edge and skills to the stu­dents. This is the path to­wards na­tion­al re­gen­er­a­tion.

The Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion nev­er re­stored the pub­li­ca­tion of the top SEA stu­dents. It took the par­ents of then 12- year-old Anoush­ka Singh in 2022 and Mi­la Zor­ro in 2023, to prise out the in­for­ma­tion through Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quests, be­fore the chil­dren, par­ents and the na­tion could know, months lat­er, that these two young lights had been the na­tion’s top SEA per­form­ers in their re­spec­tive years. Ex­cel­lence bru­tal­ly hid­den.

Thank God for tena­cious par­ents. Mi­la’s fa­ther, Ra­jesh Zoro, thinks “the coun­try’s lead­ers must recog­nise that vic­to­ries like Mi­la’s send a mes­sage to youth that “our watch­words of dis­ci­pline, pro­duc­tion and tol­er­ance start ear­ly in one’s life.”

Sound ad­vice. The present ad­min­is­tra­tion has demon­strat­ed wis­dom in re­sum­ing recog­ni­tion of our school’s top aca­d­e­m­ic per­form­ers. Thank you, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath. In cel­e­brat­ing light from our chil­dren, you bring in­spi­ra­tion to the na­tion.