Former East St. George MP Camillo Gonsalves has hailed the success of 11-year-old blind student Faith Grant at this year’s Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA).
Gonsalves, a former finance minister who was voted out of office in last November’s general election, said in a Facebook video on Saturday that Grant earned a place at the Girls High School by placing 19th for girls and 43rd among the 1,760 students in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) who wrote this year’s exam.
Grant, who was born blind, was among special education students accommodated at the Fair Hall Government School, and the former MP described her performance as an “absolutely incredible story” of talent, perseverance and inclusive education in SVG.
Gonsalves said the CPEA results had brought many reasons to celebrate, but Grant’s achievement stood out as a national milestone.
“There is one story and one person and one school that I think deserves special recognition after this exam,” he said. “It’s an incredible story, and I hope that we all can agree that it’s an incredible story, and I hope that we can all celebrate this incredible story…
“Faith, as many people know, was born with impaired vision, without the gift of sight, but she has so many other tremendous gifts.”
‘The same exam that everyone else took’
Gonsalves stressed that Grant sat the same examination as other pupils, with adaptations only to allow her to access the questions.
“She had someone with her to read the questions to her,” he said and described how the invigilators helped her navigate visual elements in the test.
“You can imagine when there’s a diagram that she had to look at, somebody had to sort of trace the shape of the diagram in her hand or on her back, so that she could understand, ‘Well, this is the triangle and this is where the angles were,’ and these sorts of things,” he explained.
Despite these challenges, he said, Grant not only passed but excelled.
“Despite these challenges, Faith is on her way to the Girls’ High School, and it’s an absolutely incredible story of skill, of talent, of perseverance, of nurturing, of love, and I couldn’t be more proud of this young lady,” he said.
Gonsalves said he has followed her progress closely.
“I’ve watched her throughout her progress through the Fair Hall Government School, and she’s been telling me for years that she’s going to go to GHS, and now that is a reality.”
He described Grant as “multilingual”, “effervescent”, “a voracious consumer of literature”, and said she has “a tremendous aptitude for math and for science”.
Grant, he noted, had already been recognised at her school’s graduation.
“She got prizes at her graduation on June 12 at Fair Hall Government School, and now she is from that school the very highest ranking student in terms of CPEA results,” he said.
Gonsalves highlighted the inclusive education programme at Fair Hall Government School, which he said has deliberately embraced the challenge of educating children with physical and learning difficulties alongside other students.
“I want to big up the principal, Ms [Angella] Kydd Roberts, and her very, very talented staff at the Fair Hall Government School,” he said.
The former MP recalled that a few years ago, the school made a conscious decision “to take on the special challenge of mainstreaming a lot of children who have physical challenges or learning challenges, and incorporating them into the regular student body, and teaching them as all the other students were being taught.”
Grant, he said, is not the first student with special needs from Fair Hall to go on to secondary school.
“But I do believe that she is the most successful one, at least in terms of the CPEA results.”
He said the school’s success reflects both specialised training and a broader culture of care.
“There are teachers there who have special qualifications in special education, and there are other teachers who, although they lack the formal qualifications, have just absolutely embraced the special mission of the Fair Hall Government School,” he said.
“They have absolutely just opened their hearts and their minds and been creative in teaching and educating children, and we have to big them up. We have to recognise the magic that’s taking place at Fair Hall Government School.”
A first for mainstreaming blind students
Gonsalves placed Grant’s achievement in historical context, saying that when she was her age, blind children did not have access to mainstream schools, let alone elite secondary institutions.
He said Grant is “a first” and that the country should see this as both a national and a personal achievement.
“So she’s a first, and we should celebrate that first,” he said.
Looking ahead to her time at Girls’ High School, Gonsalves acknowledged that the school system will need to adapt further.
“I believe this is the first child who doesn’t have sight who will be attending the Girls’ High School, and I know that special accommodations will have to be made for her,” he said.
“But she has handled absolutely everything that has been thrown at her in life, and I know that she will succeed at GHS as well.”
Call for corporate support
Gonsalves issued a direct appeal to corporate St. Vincent and the Grenadines and other “good corporate citizens” to support Grant and her family as she transitions to secondary school, particularly in acquiring assistive technology.
“I’m asking the corporate community in St. Vincent and the Grenadines to reach out to Faith’s mother and consider offering support to help with some of the special circumstances that Faith will have to encounter and overcome,” he said.
He said Grant is learning braille and that specialised tools could dramatically improve her access to learning materials, but come at a significant cost.
“There are documents, as she goes forward in secondary school, that will have more and more complicated illustrations and diagrams, and they are not currently in a braille format.”
However, he said new technologies can bridge that gap.
“There are tools now that can translate these documents into a format that Faith can take in and understand and act upon,” he said.
“Again, they’re not cheap, but they’re not so expensive that they’re beyond the capacity of our corporate community and those of us who are good corporate citizens…
“So please consider assisting this absolutely incredible young lady,” he added.
Gonsalves repeatedly emphasised that Grant’s achievement was the product of a broad network of support.
“Big up Faith, big up her parents, big up the Fair Hall Government School, big up the principal, all the teachers who were involved in her success,” he said, stressing that “it really has been a village that has taken Faith to this point.”
He expressed confidence that her story is only beginning.
“She is going to go so far; she has already come so far, but she has a trail that she’s blazing that all of us would be proud of,” he said.
“I think we should be proud of her already, but I think there’s even more to come from Faith.”
He closed with a play on her name that also doubled as a broader message of encouragement.
“I know she’ll go further, and I know that our faith will see us through. Big up,” he said, echoing the words of the national anthem but apparently punning on the student’s first name.