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In fact, all Guyana must be proud of her. Her classmate Ms. Yogeeta Persaud also achieved stunning results with 18 Grade Ones and we should all be proud of her as well.
It is hoped that the excellent performance of these students would motivate and inspire those students, who will be writing their examinations later on, to perform equally well if not better.
Notably both of these students are from Anna Regina Multilateral School and it will be recalled that last year another student from this school, Ms. Sarah Hakh was the top CSEC student for the Caribbean.
However, the excellent performance of this school at CSEC has not been a one-off or sporadic one. On the contrary, if the results are analysed over the past decade it will be seen that the school has been performing consistently well.
What this tells us is that the school has a group of dedicated and competent teachers, administrators and committed parents and perhaps there is something that they are doing differently which, perhaps, they could share with other schools so as to enhance their academic performance as well.
This has been confirmed by Zimeena herself, who told reporters she thinks the success of the students of her school can be credited to the teachers and parents, especially, since the parents are a strong body and the teachers are all dedicated and very special.
But very importantly too, the consistently excellent performance of this school shows that there is a, slowly but surely, bridging of the academic gap between schools in the urban and rural communities. Gone are the days when schools like Queens College, Bishops High, St. Roses’s High, St Stanislaus College and President’s College dominated examination results.
And this is a plus for our education system which is being geared to bring equity to the quality and accessibility of education through increasing investments, improving educational facilities, institutions and training of educators.
But the examination results have not only been one of outstanding results. Education Minister Priya Manickchand revealed that the overall pass rate at the general and technical proficiencies for grades one to three was 59.31% as opposed to 58.69% in 2012. And also there was a marked increase in the number of students gaining eight or more grade ones at the examination. However, the performance in English and Mathematics continue to be one of great concern. As there was a decline in the grade one to three passes in Mathematics from 29.69% in 2012 to 28.92% in 2013, while the grades one to three pass rate in English A improved from 37.02% in 2012 to 45.69 in 2013. Despite the improvement in the latter, it still has not reached a satisfactory level.
In this regard, perhaps the Education Ministry should commission a study to unearth the causative factors behind the continued unsatisfactory performance in English and Mathematics and to also make recommendations on how this problem could be effectively tackled.
Kudos once again to Zimeena and all the other top performers at this year’s CSEC and CAPE examinations. All Guyana is proud of your outstanding achievements, taken individually and collectively.
