Top secondary and tertiary students honoured

We’ve already announced their names and today some of Belize’s top performing students received their official recognition. News Five’s Marion Ali has the story.

Marion Ali, Reporting
It was a packed audience this morning at the St. John’s College Gymnasium as family and friends of Belize’s top secondary and tertiary level students received awards they earned on the C.X.C’s exams. Top achiever in the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Exams was Philip DeShield, who is currently enrolled in a Chemistry and Biology course at Goshen University, Indiana. Receiving his award was his father, Doctor Michael DeShield.

Dr. Michael DeShield, Father of C.A.P.E.’s Top Achiever, Philip DeShield
“I think there’s a lot of deserving students there it’s just that he did very well there and came out on top. But I know, and he has made it known, that it’s not an individual effort, it’s all the students who were working together as a team and coming together and that he really wanted to make sure that that got across to the awardees here.”

Marion Ali
“And he certainly had some solid support in nothing less than a parent who is nothing less than a parent who is a doctor.”

Dr. Michael DeShield
“I am getting a lot of the attention and stuff because my name is Deshield but his mom is actually the one who did a lot of the thing there and I think most parents who value education will put that into their kids. So I think the idea is to support your kids and we are fervent believers of further education and to make sure…because with that you can get a lot done in Belize or anywhere. I think that’s one thing nobody can take away from you, education.”

Top achievers in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate Exams were Jaime Burgos and Christopher Waight respectively.

Jaime Burgos, Top Achiever, C.S.E.C.
“There was one night I didn’t sleep finishing my S.B.A. but once the C.X.C. started everything was easy. It was just going to the classroom and sitting down the examination.”

Marion Ali
“Is it difficult to make a selection as to burning that midnight oil as opposed to really giving into peer pressure, your teenage friends would more want you to hang out with them and do teenage stuff?”

Jaime Burgos
“Well I always had the inner drive to make sure I put school first of everything but the final months of fourth form are the most troublesome because I started going out more but I still tried really, really hard to make sure I put in my hours of study.”

Marion Ali
“You flew in for Taiwan, what are you studying there?”

Jaime Burgos
“In Taiwan currently I am studying Mandarin for one year then the following four years I will be studying civil engineering.”

Christopher Waight, Second Highest Achiever, C.S.E.C.
“I have no concrete plans right now but I’m toying with idea of working with nanotechnology.”

Marion Ali
“Explain that.”

Christopher Waight
“I don’t really know, it just sounds cool. Nanotechnology is like a new field of computer science that’s opening to deal with like…let me put an example; at first you use to have huge flash drives, now they are getting really, really small; computers use to be like really huge, now they can fit in you lap like a laptop; now technology is getting even smaller to the point they are microscopic, that’s what I wish to work with.”

Marion Ali
“So you want to make them so miniscule we can’t see them?”

Christopher Waight
“Well I believe that’s already happening but yeah I’d want to do that.”

Marion Ali
“What are you studying right now?”

Christopher Waight
“Right now I’m studying physics, chemistry and mathematics at S.J.C.J.C.”

While many argue that enough children don’t have an opportunity to attend high school, seven hundred and seventy-five awardees Chief Education Officer Maud Hyde feels is something to be proud of.

Maud Hyde, Chief Education Officer
“The numbers today are growing. We are very happy about that. We are proud of our schools. We know that here is good work happening in many, many of our schools and we have to continue to encourage them to do same.”

Marion Ali
“Are Belizeans students on par with other students from throughout the region in terms of their performance level?”

Maud Hyde
“I would certainly say so. In fact, if you noted one of our students will be receiving a regional award; that is no easy feat. It means that that student has toped across the entire Caribbean in the humanities. That is an excellent, excellent level of performance so I would safely say we are competing, of course we always have to remember that we strive to bring everybody up as much as they can do but, as I said before, excellence is excellence and you can’t help but congratulate and celebrate that excellence on a day like today.”

Meanwhile, Education Minister, Francis Fonseca, says government is now looking to open the doors for those teens who have potential and lack opportunities.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
“Obviously we have to try to create more scholarship opportunities for our students; we are trying to do that. For example at the tertiary level we have over one thousand students at the University of Belize who are on scholarships and grants from the Ministry of Education because we want to make sure that our students, despite their economic circumstances, if they want to get a university education, they want to get higher education they should be able to do that.”

“We are investing tremendously in teacher training because we recognize that is where we will impact the quality of education by investing in our teachers and making sure that we have good, effective teachers in the classroom; that will translate into quality education.”

Noteworthy is the fact that this year’s top achievers are all males even though females are the majority in Belize’s tertiary institutions.

Marion Ali reporting for News Five.