Telesford, proud to be a product of West St George Seconday School

After being mocked for attending a secondary school that was built for “failures,” past student of the West St George Secondary School(WSGSS), Cordero Telesford is now encouraging present students to triumph over naysayers and believe in themselves.

Telesford is a proud alumni of the WSGSS. Since leaving the school, he has obtained a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration at the University Of Edinburgh, and a first Master’s Degree in Public Health at the National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan.

Telesford currently serves at the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment in the Accounts Department and is pursuing another Master’s degree in Business Administration, with special emphasis in Project management at the University of Edinburgh.

He also lectures at the School of Nursing Bachelor’s Programme in epidemiology, and runs his own business.

But when he sat the Common Entrance at the St Vincent Grammar School in 2004 after failing the exam in 2003, an invigilator asked the class if anyone thought they would return to the school as an enrolled student in September. However, Telesford told SEARCHLIGHT that he could not raise his hand.

Despite failing the exams in 2004, he was afforded space to be part of the first batch of students who were enrolled at the WSGSS in the government efforts to have every child achieve a secondary education.

But unlike the rest of the island, the students at the WSGSS wore light blue shirts as part of their uniform which made them easily identifiable and a target for harassment and mockery as their uniform closely resembled that of a Central Water and Sewage Authority worker.

“…I hated 3 p.m because I had to go home and when you go home and you get out of the bus, all the neighbours will be shouting to the other neighbours to come outside [because] the water bill man is coming to share bills for five years. Five years. Five years,” he told SEARCHLIGHT.

Telesford said that some people believe that WSGSS is a school for failures or for people who will become nothing in life.

“You felt like a failure, because that’s how people made you feel especially in the morning when you have to be at the bus stop and you’re the only one in this baby blue shirt, while everybody else is in Grammar School and the other white uniform.”

Telesord said that the situation has gone so far that students are not only consumed with the school they pass to attend, but with the streams that they have been placed in.

“I have a friend right now, and he was placed in a particular stream at the St Vincent Grammar school, and he was angry, like seriously angry, so you see it’s the mindset of people. You have to know that wherever you’re planted, you’ll be able to grow there once you put your mind forward and towards achieving.”

As the school celebrates its 20th year of establishment, he is encouraging students to believe in themselves as people will have many things to say about them.

“They will let you feel as though you are nothing, you are no one; and we know the country that we live in, if you are not from the elite secondary school or an elite school rather, you are nothing. You can’t achieve anything,” but Telesford said that as someone who was told that he will become nothing in life, he is doing extremely well and is proud to be a product of the WSGSS.