Guyana cops most CXC awards

Last Updated on Saturday, 26 December 2015, 21:00 by GxMedia

Guyana has copped five of the eight regional awards being offered by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), Minister of Education Priya Manickchand announced on Thursday.

They are Yogeeta Persaud – Anna Regina Secondary School, Overall Outstanding Achievement; Rafena Mustapha – Saraswati Vidya Niketan, Most Outstanding in Humanities; Cecil Cox – Queen’s College, Most Outstanding in Sciences; Sasha S Woodroffe – Queen’s College, Most Outstanding in Business Studies; and Zimeena A Rasheed – Anna Regina Secondary School, Most Outstanding in Technical Vocational.

The other three awards for Most Outstanding Candidate in Visual Arts, 2-Dimensional Work, Most Outstanding Candidate in Visual Arts, 3-Dimensional Work and Most Outstanding Candidate in Short Story Writing were won by students outside of Guyana.

“This is the continuation of the trend that Guyana has been on for a number of years now, save and except for 2010, we have been copping the best overall achievement award…our local Guyanese sons and daughters have been winning that award repeatedly,” Manickchand was quoted as saying by the Government Information Agency (GINA).

The Minister believed that those achievements reflect the level of investment in the sector and equal treatment of all schools.  She charged schools to work even harder so that Guyana can take home all of the awards next year. “We want all eight of those awards,” she emphasized.

On the question of whether students should be restricted to writing fewer subjects, Manickchand said the Education Ministry does not actively encourage students to write large numbers of subjects. She explained that the policy states that a student would have to show remarkable competency before they are able to write more than 8-10 subjects. They are also required to pass the Grade 9 exams before they can sign up for the exams.

“The fact that we have students writing 20 means we have the capacity to write 20,” she said. The Minister added that over the last decade Guyanese students have proved that they have the capacity that will catapult them to world leadership.

Within the last decade, Guyana has been consistently winning awards from CXC because of the excellent performance of our students. In 2012 Guyana won four of the eight Regional Awards.

The Ministry also encouraged all students in Guyana to continue to apply themselves to the core principles and practices of the subjects they study, to achieve higher quality passes at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) level.