Girls Rule...Scholarship winners announced

Presidents medal winner Sadhana Balladin

THE GIRLS have done it again.
THE President medal winners for 2018 are Sadhana Balladin of St Joseph’s Convent, San Fernando and Amrita Singh of Lakshmi Girls’ Hindu College.4 

President medal winner Amrita Singh.

They were among the pupils of girls high schools who took the lions’ share of 376 national scholarships in 2018.
The list was announced by Ministry of Education Anthony Garcia on Thursday at the ministry’s office in Port of Spain, live on social media.
The schools which took the most scholarships was St Joseph’s Convent in Port of Spain (41), St Augustine Girls’ High School (34), Naparima Girls’ High School (31), Lakshmi Girls’ High School (24) and St Joseph’s Convent (18) in San Fernando.
The tops boys’ schools which were awarded scholarships were Hillview (35), Naparima Boys’ College (31), Presentation College Chaguanas (19), and Presentation College San Fernando (18)


Also awarded scholarships were - Couva East Secondary school (four), Debe Secondary School (one), St Francois Girls’ College (one), St George’s College (one).
Garcia identified St George’s College and Queen’s Royal College (QRC) as two schools which “normally do very well” but did not this year.
“QRC is not among the schools which have been awarded scholarships but I am sure that in the future they are going to improve. It has been a school that has been one of the bastions of academic excellence in the past. These things happen. Sometimes we have a year does not do too well but I am sure that the principal and students are going to step up to the plate next year and when these scholarships are being awarded they will be among those. Some schools that did exceptionally well for example St Joseph’s Convent, Port of Spain”, said Garcia.


He said overall that “most of our students have done well”.
Garcia said: “While we glorify and we are very happy with the performance of our students and we are very happy to know that we can award substantial number of scholarships, Cabinet was also very concerned about the apparent imbalance in terms of the number of scholarships that are awarded in particular areas of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. In Natural Sciences 188 scholarships were awarded and Mathematics 103 students received scholarships.
Garcia said that Cabinet decided to appoint an Inter-Ministerial committee that will do an in-depth analysis of the award of scholarships. In future scholarships should be closely tied to our developmental needs.
“In other words there are some areas to the continued development of our country and every opportunity should be given to our students so that they can do further work in these areas and this can assist us in the development of our country", he said.