Roll of honour: Beaconhouse celebrates high achievers

Nearly 5,000 parents, students, teachers participated in two-day event.

ISLAMABAD:

There were pats on the back, medals around the necks and smiles all around as the Beaconhouse School System (BSS) northern region honoured its high achievers students during a tw0-day ceremony, which concluded on Saturday at the Jinnah Convention Centre.

Over 1,200 students received awards and medals for academic achievements in matriculation and O and A-levels Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) for years 2012 and 2013.

At the ceremony attended by around 5,000 parents, teachers and students altogether, six students who got the highest marks in the world for individual subjects and 36 students who got city-wide distinctions in 2012 and 2013 were especially celebrated.

O levels students Omar Ashraf, Hammad Ahmad and Talha Amin Chaudhry got five top in the world distinctions in exams held in 2013. Ashraf secured highest marks worldwide for additional mathematics and chemistry, Ahmad for computer studies and mathematics and Chaudhry for Pakistan Studies. Subha Majid  stood second in her school  in  matriculation exams 2013.

The students made the whole nation proud, said northern region BSS Executive Director Nassir Kasuri.

Some of them also seemed to brim with a career-choice confidence often rare in students before they enter college. Unlike high school students who are not sure about career choices before entering college, Hejab Butt and Mian Sikandar Adeel had no doubts at all.

Butt always wanted to be a doctor and Adeel always wanted to be an engineer. They were among dozens of Beaconhouse School System students feted on Friday by their school for performing well in O- and A-level exams, respectively.

Currently, a student of medicine at the Rawalpindi Medical College, Butt secured five As in A level exams. “I’m thinking about a specialisation in paediatrics, even though it might be too early to commit. Medicine has been a passion since childhood. “I would always have a little first-aid medical kit with me even when I was a child,” Butt said.

Adeel, who secured an Islamabad-wide distinction in Computing and also a Best-three-As distinction, was inspired by his maternal uncle, a mechanical engineer, to pursue engineering from the start. Following in his uncle’s footsteps, he is now enrolled at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute to study mechanical engineering.

The competition to get good grades in CIE is tough, Adeel said. But he felt it was a kind of “responsibility” to perform well, a symbolic debt he owed his parents, who were getting him an education every child deserves.

For Butt, it is all about self-motivation. She said parents and teachers may support students, but in the end it is the scholar who must strive for excellence. “Nothing is impossible,” she said. “You just have to work hard and motivate yourself to achieve the best.”

Engineering and medicine have long been the nation’s comfort careers for boys and girls respectively. Stereotypical Pakistani professions they may be, but there is nothing wrong with that as long as the students are passionate about their careers.

The race for grades is often criticised as a ruthless force that numbs creativity and fascination among children.

“Purely academic learning can make you dull,” Adeel said. “So you have to balance it with extra-curricular activities.” At his alma mater and at his university, he added that students are provided ample opportunities to take a break from textbooks.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2014.