15 year old takes out Havelock North High School's top academic prize
Hearing the words ‘High School Dux,’ you’re likely to picture an eighteen-year-old senior. You might be surprised then to hear that the top honours recipient for Havelock North High School is just fifteen.
Meet Tapas Kant, a young academic marvel whose scholastic career started when he would enter Year 10 maths classes as a Year 8 from Havelock North Intermediate. Since then, he has been awarded multiple prizes across a range of subjects including Biology, Statistics and English.
After being awarded the Foundation Trophy for Dux on 4 November, he also received the Barrett Cup for excellence in the sciences. He’s about to enter his final year of secondary school in 2023, from which Tapas will graduate two years younger than his peers with university already on the horizon.
This success, he says, could not have been possible without the love and support from his mum and dad.
"They have always encouraged and helped me with everything from schoolwork to competitions, sports and so much more,’ Tapas explains. ‘Their help in my academic journey has been the only reason I have been able to get to where I am at now."
Havelock North High School's 2022 Dux, 15-year-old Tapas Kant (third from left) with his father Rashmi Kant, mother Weelam Tripathi and brother Tarang Kant. Photo/Supplied.
Older brother Tarang Kant was moved to tears when he saw him on stage at the prizegiving, witnessing the monumental effort his little brother put in finally paying off.
As for his favourite subject, Tapas has a particular soft spot for Calculus, finding it fascinating "how applicable it is to all parts of the world we live in."
A member of his school’s first XI cricket and football teams, he also enjoys chess, table tennis and piano; the latter of which he is mostly teaching himself to play.
More recently, Tapas entered in a national tournament for robotics which his team of four won in July.
When asked what his pre-grad plans are, Tapas says a course in first year health science at Otago University might be his goal in 2024. "In saying that," he adds, "I am very open to take opportunities I
might get outside of New Zealand."
Whichever direction he takes, the sky is the limit for this brilliant teenage mind.
