Georgetown, Guyana - Guyana’s Anuradha Dev has been declared this year's Best Overall Performer at the region-wide Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.
The 15-year-old Queen’s College (QC) girl also secured the Best Performing Student in Science award, Education Minister Shaik Baksh revealed at a news conference on Friday.
Her schoolmate Mariesa Jagnanan secured the award for the Best Performing Student in Business while, Nathan Indarsingh, another QC student who is now in fifth form, copped the Best Short Story prize for the English A exam, a first for Guyana.
“I’m very proud and very happy as are all of the managers at the ministry at this outstanding performance of Guyana … and we must not forget that Guyana in 2008, 2009, and 2010 and again I’m optimistic that in 2011 we’ll get the Caribbean Agriculture Research and development Institute Award for the most outstanding student in Agricultural Science,” Baksh stated.
Reacting to her achievement Dev said she could not have done it without religious intervention, her parents and teachers and it would be a great honour to represent Guyana at the awards ceremony later this year.
The young woman said she has decided on becoming a psychiatrist after doing her Social Studies SBA on suicide which revealed to her that many of the persons going that route were the same age as her and her friends.
“Since we don’t have so many psychiatrists in the country we need somebody qualified to do this and yes I intend to stay in Guyana and make a change in Guyana because this is my homeland.
I would like to urge everybody to please stay in Guyana because this is your country, this is the only place that you will truly belong; at least have some national pride and try to develop Guyana because if you don’t try to make a change nobody else will,” Dev said.
She is currently a 6th former at QC pursuing CAPE certification with plans to go on to the University of the West Indies.
Jagnanan meanwhile said she is still to decide between being an economist or an accountant though she is already doing Economics at the University of Guyana.
Dev was presented with a netbook computer for her achievements while Jagnanan received a monetary prize. QC principal Nadia Hollingsworth received a monetary prize on behalf of Indarsingh who was unable to attend Friday’s event.
Dev secured 15 grade ones while Jagnanan copped 14.
Guyana previously secured the Best Overall Performer award from 2006 to 2009 and has received the best Science performer award every year since then. The best Business performer had previously emerged from Guyana in 2007 and 2008.
First published by Demerara Waves.
Guyana News