BY LORETTA B MANELE
Damien Makuke Marau, this name was announced on Friday 18th, October at the St Nicholas Anglican College graduation that was packed with families, friends and supporters who gathered under the humid weather to witness the school’s 20th graduation.
The 18-year-old form 7 Science student humbly made his way to the stage to receive his academic award and later the Dux student award.
He’d later receive his form 7 certificate along with his class.
Damien hails from Isabel, Malaita and Makira provinces and is the second eldest in a family of 3 boys.
His academic journey began when he attended Fiji’s Arya Samaj Primary School from 2011 to 2019 and completed grades 1 to 8 before going to Jai Narayan College to do form 3 and form 4 in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
He returned to Solomon Islands after completing form 4 and attended Bishop Epalle Catholic School in 2022 where he did his form 5 studies.
Damien then attended St Nicholas Anglican College to do his form 6 studies in the following year and is currently doing his form 7 science studies at the same college.
The importance of hard work in school began for him while he was in primary school.
Thinking back to those days, it was his primary school teachers at Fiji’s Arya Samaj Primary School that always told him that he had to work hard.
What motivated Damien the most was that he was in another country and so he had to prove that he deserved to be at the school.
Since then, he worked hard and did his best and at that time, he wasn’t always the best student so he had to adjust.
It was when he attended Jai Narayan College that he began to be really competitive in his studies especially because this was one of the Indian prestigious schools that focused mainly on academics and things like sports wasn’t really a thing there.
Competitively, the lowest mark the college accepted was 80 given that it was a well-known school with high expectations from students.
As Damien recalls, more than 400 to 600 students applied to the school but only 180 were selected.
In 2021 he came back home and attended Bishop Epalle School where he did his form 5 studies.
After having attended schools that were really competitive, academically he didn’t see the need to go out and prove himself in other top schools in the country like King George Sixth School or Tenaru.
He felt that he could attend any school here and still have that same motivation and drive.
When Damien came back, he also brought with him the same initiatives that he had learned back in Fiji and is still holding on to those initiatives.
Speaking of future aspirations, Damien has always wanted to be a cardiovascular doctor or a neurologist because he thinks the country needs more doctors in those fields.
His third option is to be a doctor for cancer patients particularly because he has relatives who died from cancer.
As a young student when he was in form 3, he always tried to work harder, stayed up late at night but now looking back he kind of regrets that a little.
At the time, Damien preferred to study alone and later got a low mark which made him feel really bad to the point that it took him a week to get over it.
He thinks Form 3, 5 and 6 students shouldn’t be pressured too much.
His advice for them is to reduce the time they spend studying alone and instead study together in groups so they can communicate, share and work together and improve.
Comparing his school days in Fiji to the current days he sees a difference.
In Fiji, they were encouraged to only use their books and notes whereas here a lot of students have phones making it easier for them to access information and do research.
One challenge he came across when returning back home here in the Solomons was getting used to the local Pidgin language and it took Damien a while before he began speaking the language.
At first, one part of the challenge was understanding new words or slangs while the other challenge was, he found it difficult when he’d ask his teachers to explain something about a particular topic and they’d respond in Pidgin.
But as time passed, he eventually got the hang of it and now speaks Pidgin fluently.
When he was a little boy, his parents had always told him that he had to work hard in school because back in their days, getting education was difficult.
Damien alone was motivated to do the best he could in school because he saw that a number of his family members didn’t make it far in school.
A lot of people in his village did not even make it to Form 3 and so Damien felt that he had a responsibility as a person with the ability and opportunity to further his education to set an example.
Damien feels that he has to work hard and show the kids in his village that education is something that matters and is not something to play around with.
He has two hobbies and the second one is quite interesting.
The first one is playing rugby and the second one is taking pride in mathematics.
Damien sees mathematics as a game and for him it’s fun and although it’s not really easy, once he’s able to solve a mathematical question he becomes really happy.
Interestingly, during his free time, he watches mathematical clips or videos.
This young, motivated and humble student looks up to his parents as his role models.
For him, as a little boy, he saw how his parents worked so hard and made it possible for him to study in Fiji where he got the opportunity not only to study in competitive schools but to also have self determination and drive to always work hard.
“Without them I would not be where I am today”
