Guyana: Alisha Scheller shines as NGSA’s top student of 2024

Alisha Scheller was crowned the top student in this year’s National Sixth Grade Assessment (NGSA) in Guyana.

Scheller, a student at Success Elementary in Georgetown, scored 503.34 and will continue his education at Queen’s College when school reopens in September.

Kaiya Daniels from Green Acres Primary School and Lucas Spooner from Mae’s Under 12 Primary School came second and third, scoring 503.27 and 502.44 points respectively.

Kaiya Daniels of Green Acres Elementary School receives her award from Ritisha Gobin, who was one of last year’s top students.

Skylar Ghopal from Mae’s Under 12 Primary School came fourth with 502.38 points. She also won award for the best short story writer.

Jayin Kissoon of Marian Academy, Khayleigh Ramautar of Academy of Excellence and Yuan Shen of Canadian School of Arts and Science took joint fifth place with 502.33 points.

They will all attend Queen’s College.

Lucas Spooner of Mae Under 12 Primary School receives his award from Ritisha Gobin, who tied for first place in last year’s NGSA competition.

Adalia Edwards of the Academy of Excellence won the NGSA Award for Best Letter Writer.

Education Minister Priya Manickchand announced the results at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre and encouraged all students to continue striving for excellence.

“I want to pay tribute to all of these kids. To me, considering that we have over 70 million kids around the world who are not able to do what these kids are doing. Just getting to the end of primary school and actually passing those grades and getting into high school to get a secondary education, they are all winners,” she said.

In May, over 15,000 students wrote the NGSA exam.

The top 40 students in this year’s NGSA exams. Photo: Ministry of Education.

Dr. Nicole Manning, Director of Examinations Operations at the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), revealed that Guyana saw slight improvements in English, Mathematics and Social Studies pass scores.

The Education Minister celebrated the achievement, saying the Government was finally seeing children overcome the challenges they faced during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Manickchand said the Government has invested in teacher training and resources to ensure that all students in Guyana have access to the same level of education.