TML principal: Investment in education is a shared commitment

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

With the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment fast ap­proach­ing, Act­ing Prin­ci­pal of San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School, Wahi­da Mo­hammed-Nar­ine, urged par­ents across the coun­try to sup­port their chil­dren’s aca­d­e­m­ic jour­neys by pro­vid­ing a study sched­ule and mo­ti­vat­ing them to ex­cel.

She spoke as 24 for­mer TML pupils who ex­celled in the 2025 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) and Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) re­ceived ho­n­ours dur­ing an awards cer­e­mo­ny yes­ter­day.

Mo­hammed-Nar­ine urged par­ents to work close­ly with their chil­dren in the pur­suit of ex­cel­lence. She praised 19 top SEA per­form­ers and five CAPE Na­tion­al Schol­ar­ship win­ners, de­scrib­ing their ac­com­plish­ments as a re­flec­tion of a deeply root­ed cul­ture of team­work. She sin­gled out Safaa Varach­hia, who placed first in the school, Umar Mo­hammed, sec­ond, and Alyx Per­sad, third.

The prin­ci­pal re­port­ed that 38 stu­dents gained en­try to their first-choice sec­ondary schools, with no stu­dent scor­ing be­low 50 per cent and no re­peaters. She said the school has con­sis­tent­ly ranked among the top five pri­ma­ry schools na­tion­al­ly for the past five to six years, in­clud­ing first-place fin­ish­es in 2020 and 2023.

Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said that while teach­ers have done yeo­man ser­vice, spe­cial em­pha­sis should be placed on parental in­volve­ment.

“In­vest­ment in ed­u­ca­tion is not the du­ty of teach­ers alone—it is a shared com­mit­ment,” she said, urg­ing par­ents to con­tin­ue guid­ing, sup­port­ing and en­cour­ag­ing their chil­dren.

She main­tained that dis­ci­pline, per­se­ver­ance, and hard work are es­sen­tial to achieve­ment.

The cer­e­mo­ny al­so recog­nised five CAPE Na­tion­al Schol­ar­ship awardees: Raeesah Sun­dars­ingh (Open – En­vi­ron­men­tal), Ray­den Ram­per­sad (Open – Nat­ur­al Sci­ences), Mikaeel Ali (Ad­di­tion­al – Nat­ur­al Sci­ences), Syed Ali (Ad­di­tion­al – En­vi­ron­men­tal), and Amiel Ho­sein (Ad­di­tion­al – Tech­ni­cal).

Mean­while, school Su­per­vi­sor from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Roy­don Ram­per­sad de­scribed 2025 as a year of “even greater cause for cel­e­bra­tion,” and said TML was recog­nised as the top pub­lic pri­ma­ry school in the coun­try based on SEA re­sults. Based on a weight­ed per­for­mance in­dex mea­sur­ing both ex­cel­lence and eq­ui­ty, he said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion recog­nised the school as third na­tion­al­ly for SEA 2025, and first among all Gov­ern­ment and De­nom­i­na­tion­al schools in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“This dis­tinc­tion is not on­ly a re­flec­tion of the bril­liance of our stu­dents, but al­so of the ded­i­ca­tion of our prin­ci­pal, teach­ers, the sup­port of our par­ents, and the strong val­ues that de­fine this in­sti­tu­tion,” Ram­per­sad said.

He en­cour­aged stu­dents to view their achieve­ments as the be­gin­ning of a life­long jour­ney of learn­ing and ser­vice, re­mind­ing them that their suc­cess is “a gift to your fam­i­ly, your school and your coun­try.”

There was al­so a call for con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween par­ents, teach­ers and the wider com­mu­ni­ty to en­sure that every child is giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to thrive. Oth­er stu­dents re­ceiv­ing awards in­clud­ed Raeid Mu­radali, Aria Sar­jad, Malai­ka Ho­sein, Sophia Dass, Catri­ona Bathelmy, Raeesah Sama­roo, Hai­ley Bharat, Samaya Seep­er­sad, Kai­ley Pan­choo, Rayann Sir­ju, Suriya Nanan, Ker­ana Bharat, Christo­pher Gan­ga, Sheera Sam­bucha­ran, Zoe Ali and Ce­line Sinanan. The 2026 SEA is card­ed for March 26.