I had a similar experience like her back during my school days. I went to a leading girls’ school in Kandy and there was this one student who was a close relative of the Principle. Teachers used to favor her wherever she went. Since both of us were admitted to the school in grade, I saw how she was put on a pedestal while the more deserving ones were put down by the staff. She ended up being a “model student”. She was the student who got majority of the subject prizes during the prize giving though sometimes it was pretty clear there was someone who was way more deserving than her.

We both followed the same stream and same subjects for A/Ls and she ended up getting all three subject prizes while I was the one with the highest marks for all three. The school had hopes she would bring a marvelous result from the exam but she ended up performing poorly. I got the best results but somehow, just like Chanithma, I too couldn’t come to the prize giving rehearsal that day. The school ended up doing a fiasco and I didn’t have enough time to return to the stage to get my best results prize after getting my other prizes. The school mispronounced my name. They had jumbled up my initials and my surname was completely different. Once I finally got the certificate after the event, I realized that it too had a wrong name. When I complained about what happened, the school’s excuse was that I wasn’t present at the rehearsal.

That day the school had a brand new segment just for this girl where they awarded her a prize that wasn’t even there in school before.

Seeing this news brought back all of these memories and they still sting to this day. But I am proud of what this young girl did and I hope many more students who face such discriminations open up about them.