BURNHAM Educational Scholarship Trust (BEST) last Friday awarded thirty-four econdary school students from all ten administrative regions, bursaries to the value of $920,000 at the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Headquarters, Congress Place, Sophia.The awards ceremony, which was attended by recipients, parents and guardians, party officials and Trustees of the Burnham Educational Scholarship Trust (BEST) saw twenty-two continuing students and twelve students for the 2012, 2013 and 2014 academic years receiving the bursaries.

The Best awards are made on the basis of the students’ results at the annual National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), which are certified by the Ministry of Education. As such, candidates were nominated by Regional Education Committees of the People’s National Congress Reform in all ten administrative regions.

Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform, Brigadier David Granger in his feature address at the ceremony, congratulated and encouraged the students to continue working hard, while noting that “education is the key [to success]”. Granger further said that BEST was rewarding excellence and encouraged the awardees to seek excellence in education, excellence in opportunities, in order to enhance their opportunities later in life.

“If you are to succeed you have to be educated, the PNCR wants you all to have a good life… we as a Party are not only about winning elections, but we are committed to ensuring a good life for all Guyanese” the PNCR leader urged the students. He explained that the PNCR and BEST would continue to invest in education, which he described as the “mother of employment, empowerment, enterprise and equality” and the gateway to a “good life”.

Presenting a brief historical overview of the Trust was Chairman of BEST, Allan Munroe who said that it was the vision of former President Forbes Burnham, who was this country’s first elected education minister sixty-one years ago, to have an educated nation where free education from nursery to university was an entitlement. BEST was founded to perpetuate that vision.

Recipients of the BEST Bursary Awards 2014 are: Mareisa Nascimento (Region 1); Azeema Smith (Region 2); Samuela Bruce (Region 3); Arielle Lewis (Region 4 – ECD); Colisha Hazelwood (Region 4 – Georgetown); Shania DeGroot (Region 4 – EBD); Mark Blair (Region 5); Athena Beharry (Region 6); Sussana Augustin (Region 7); Anna Matheson (Region 8); Azem Flatts (Region 9); and Roy Rogers (Region 10).

BEST is a registered, non-governmental, non-profit sharing trust.

(Ravin Singh)