STUDENTS from Guyana have copped five of eight awards at the 2020 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations and two of eight awards at the 2020 Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) at the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) Regional Awards Ceremony on Thursday. The ceremony for the first time was held virtually.
Guyana also won the awards for both CSEC and CAPE School of the Year 2020. This award went to Queen’s College.
Guyana won the Dennis Irvine Award for the top overall student at CAPE and the Overall Outstanding Performance Achievement at CSEC, as well as the Most Outstanding Performance in Natural Sciences for CAPE and CSEC. Both of these CAPE awards were won by Zane Ramotar of QC, while both of these awards at CSEC were won by Bhedesh Persaud.
Persaud gained 22 Grade Ones and One Grade Two at the 2020 CSEC examinations, while Ramotar copped 14 Grade Ones and one Grade Two at CAPE during the 2019 – 2020 period.
Guyana also won the award for the Most Outstanding Performance in Business Education. This award

was won by Nyron Seoukienandan of St Rose’s High School; the Most Outstanding Performance in Technical and Vocational Studies which was won by Anthony Sukra of New Amsterdam Secondary School  and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) award for the Most Outstanding Performance in Principles of Accounts, which was won in a tie between Shania Sattaur of Brickdam Secondary School in Guyana, and Joe Wootten of Trinidad and Tobago.
Aside from Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago (TT) was the only other country to have won awards at the CAPE while TT, St Vincent and the Grenadines were the only other countries to have gained awards at CSEC.  The ceremony also saw the awards for the Most Outstanding Performance by a Male and by a Female student in the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) examination, which were won by Leoneal Mark from Grenada and Mya Lake from Anguilla. .
The Regional Top Awards Ceremony was hosted at St John’s Pentecostal House of Restoration Ministries in Antigua and Barbuda, while the regional awardees participated virtually from locations in their respective countries.

The feature address for the ceremony was presented by Antigua’s Prime Minister, Gaston Browne
“The days of chalk and talk are long gone. The use of computer technology and integration of machine learning must become the raison d’etre. The Caribbean Region is depending on you to take the baton to take our Region to heights we never dreamed of,” Browne remarked.
Also delivering remarks at the ceremony were CXC Registrar, Dr. Wayne Wesley and CXC Chairman, Sir Hilary Beckles, as well as Principal of QC, Jackie Ralph and Ramotar.
During his speech, Ramotar commended the students and other stakeholders for having weathered the storm that was the COVID-19 pandemic, and particularly the students for doing their best at the examinations. However, Ramotar also called on the regional body to continue improving its systems, given the backlash from last year over the preliminary results. Thousands of students initially had less than satisfactory grades; these were later improved when reviewed.
Both Persaud and Ramotar had improved grades after the review.