By Rupadai Seenaraine
Queen’s College has secured the highest number of Grade Ones for this year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). 
The Education Ministry on Friday announced the top performers for the 2021 examinations, based on the number of Grade Ones achieved. It noted that a top student will only be named when the Caribbean Examinations Council is finished reviewing the grades, and selecting a candidate based on the appropriate combination of subjects.
For CSEC, Sarena Razak from Queen’s College secured 19 Grade Ones, two Grade Twos and one Grade Three.
Razak told the media, “This wasn’t a surprise. I expected to get called for the number of subjects. However, I have never really been called for my percentages so I’d say I am a high performer in terms of the number of subjects.”
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the top performer explained that adapting to a new method of learning was the most challenging but she persisted.
“I have been working on my own, working online. It has [not] been too difficult but it was very different. Getting used to it was definitely a challenge. I have lots of help from teachers, friends and everybody but it wasn’t as much different in terms of the content I was getting.”
Her next plan is to enrol in the CAPE programme and to have a career path in the engineering field.
This was followed by three students, La Shea Patois with 18 Grade Ones; Zaynab Shaffie with 18 Grade Ones and two Grade Twos; and Roshini Samaroo with 17 Grade Ones – all students of QC.
Shaffie, who hails from Industry on the East Coast of Demerara, said there was no competition from other students due to closure of schools, which made it “harder”.
“When it comes to being at home and studying, your house is not necessarily the best environment because you may have siblings and it’s not going to be quiet enough. You can’t concentrate enough and you have to find a way to fit your schedule around that.”
Anuradha Basdeo of Abram Zuil Secondary secured 17 Grade Ones and two Grade Twos. She is seeking a career in gynaecology.
Meanwhile, from the Saraswati Vidya Niketan, Faraz Yassin accomplished 17 Grade Ones and one Grade Two; Savitri Mahadeo – 16 Grade Ones and one Grade Two; Ronaldo Khemchan – 16 Grade Ones and Three Grade Twos; Karuma Lall – 16 Grade Ones and three Grade Twos; and Roushanie Lall – 16 Grade Ones and four Grade Twos.
From the Anna Regina Secondary School, Kelly Sankar also secured 16 Grade Ones and four Grade Twos.
Some 9808 candidates were registered for the 2021 CSEC examinations as compared to 12,009 registered for 2020. Subject entries for 2021 were 61,437. An analysis of the 2021 preliminary results revealed that the overall pass rate at the General and Technical proficiencies for Grades One to Three was 66.36 per cent. Some 20 subject areas out of a total 33 saw top performances for the region.
At the CSEC level, Guyana scored higher than the regional average in Integrated Science, Electronic Document Preparation and Management, Office Administration, Information Technology; and Human and Social Biology. Performance was lower than the region for Mathematics, Chemistry, Principles of Business and Social Studies.
CAPE performance
Meanwhile for CAPE, Daniel Roopchand of Queen’s College emerged with 10 Grade Ones and one Grade Two. Being a Mathematics enthusiast, Roopchand is envisioning a career in engineering, as he ultimately wants a career that will “challenge” him.
He told Guyana Times, “I feel as though engineering would more encapsulate my love for chemistry, physics, math and so on. I haven’t specifically narrowed down which set of engineering I want to pursue…I’m thinking of pursuing something that is challenging and intuitive so it doesn’t get easy over time. As the years progress, I want to pursue a career that gets harder and would always give me a challenge”.
Roopchand experienced a “sense of accomplishment” upon learning of his grades but preparing for the exams in a different environment had its lows. While there was the advantage of having information at his disposal through online learning, there needed to be discipline in order to stay focused.
“It made me have to develop a new sense of discipline because you’re at home. There’s no teachers presiding over you. You need to have a strong sense of self disciple to be able to get up every day and study for a certain amount of hours on your own,” he stressed.
Also from Queen’s College was Samuel Haynes with nine Grade Ones. Haynes is aiming to tackle the discipline of dentistry in the coming years.
Talking about his journey, he said “My parents always encouraged me to push past my limits and they kept encouraging me until they didn’t have to anymore because it became innate.”
Abdul Subhan from St Stanislaus College and Jorrel DeSantos from Queen’s College both copped eight Grade Ones. Alexa Abraham from St Rose’s High School was able to achieve seven Grade Ones and three Grade Twos. Meanwhile, Yu Qing Zhou and Alicialall Hiralall – both from QC – attained eight Grade Ones, respectively.
For CAPE Unit One, the top performers were Atishta Seenarine from Saraswati Vidya Niketan; Bhedesh Persaud of Queen’s College; Shivnarine Chaitram of Saraswati Vidya Niketan; and Tatayana Pearson of Queen’s College, respectively.
In May-June 2021, 723 candidates from 10 secondary schools and four private centres wrote CAPE in Guyana.
The overall pass rate in 2021 is 90.86 per cent; while the gender distribution of the overall passes is 36 per cent males and 64 per cent females.
For CAPE, 30 Units saw candidates obtaining a 100 per cent pass rate of Grades One to Five; and 75 per cent passes across another 28 units.
