NEXT Step Guyana, a student-led platform designed to offer free mentorship and guidance to students across Guyan, on Thursday hosted a Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) results guidance session.
The online event targeted students from Forms Four to Six, and those who recently received results for the 2026 CSEC and CAPE examinations.
It featured topics on moving forward after school, understanding CAPE, choosing a path after CSEC, selecting CSEC and CAPE subjects, the University of Guyana’s medicine, law, technology and engineering programmes, career opportunities in Guyana that students often overlook, studying abroad in Canada, the United States and at the University of the West Indies (UWI), tackling CAPE Mathematics, and getting career ready.
Those engaging students during the three-hour session were Arthur Roberts, David Sugrim, Akeriah Hinds, Aaron St. Hill, Dave Chowtie, Joshua Singh, Laurianne Lewis, Breanne Boucher, Theresa Nacimento, Ronaldo Rodrigues, Irshaad Ali, Reginald Brown, Ashwini Sarran, Anya Loaknauth, Alisande Jaiserrisingh, Joshua Gulab, Mahadeo Deokinandan and Trisha Heerlall.
The session was done both in-person and via the zoom platform. After each presentation, there was a question-and-answer segment.
One of the discussions attended focused on the importance of CSEC results in shaping future career paths. The more than 70 attendees were told as well that they have various options at the university level and in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), apprenticeship and entrepreneurship fields.
St. Hill during his presentation related to students that now that they have completed CSEC they may be wondering what to do next, and what they qualify for, as well as what career path they should take.
“Before we start talking about specific careers or programmes or degrees, we should take a step back and look at the bigger picture, because your CSEC results are important. The thing is, they don’t actually determine their goal.”
Along with Hinds, his co-presenter, St. Hill referred to CSEC as the starting point, not the end.
“Importantly, CSEC results don’t matter now for you as a young student coming out of high school. They can determine what opportunities are immediately available to you, such as whether you move on to CAPE or programmes like TVET, university, professional institutes, apprenticeships, skill training, the workforce, entrepreneurship. These results are the best thing that we use academically and professionally, but they do not determine your entire future.”
He cautioned the participants by saying that instead of thinking they have to have life figured out right that second, they should be thinking about opportunities that are available and which ones make the most sense for them at this stage.
Hinds noted, “after school, you start seeing other opportunities, you start hearing about things you never heard about before in high school, and your mind kind of changes and that’s okay;”
She continued, “Don’t allow your family, or society to decide your future because at the end of the day, you want to sit at your desk, or you want to go on the summer, and you want to enjoy and really love and appreciate what you’re doing, and it’s important to not have regrets on the way. You want to love and be passionate about what you do.”
Also mentioned during the discussions were the emphasised importance of self-initiative and entrepreneurship, as well as attending and participating in competitions and various training sessions, volunteering, and maintaining extra-curricular activities.
Next Step Guyana is a platform that was created last year to help students across Guyana by offering peer to peer guidance, empowering Guyanese students to choose, dream and act. Along with Thursday’s session, the organisation hosts daily sessions from Monday to Saturday. These sessions include youth programmes, CSEC support, CAPE support, guidance on studying abroad, and professional or career guidance, among many others.
For more details persons can visit Next Step’s website: https://www.nextstepgy.org/ where they can also access the link to join their WhatsApp for updates.
