2025 College Dux Manuth Galabada Widanarachchige has earned the highest possible VCE accolade – a Premier’s Award for Top All-Round VCE High Achiever.

Lily Marshall, the Pakenham Campus 2025 Dux, has also earned a Premier’s subject award for Environmental Science, for which she scored a perfect 50.

Manuth is among the elite group of students across the state who qualified for the Top All-Round award. Recipients must achieve study scores of 46 or higher out of 50 in at least five VCE subjects.

While delighted with the accolade, Manuth was not surprised, and said that meeting the criteria for the award had been his goal since starting Senior School.

His advice to VCE students – or for all learning – is to understand the concepts and learn how to critically think.

“When I was young, I just tried to memorise stuff and use that to do well, but when I went into the higher year levels I realised that doesn’t work anymore – it’s about digesting the concepts to truly understand what’s going on,” he said.

The Berwick Campus captain’s ATAR for his 2025 VCE studies was 99.95. Last year he also received a Premier’s subject award for his perfect 50 subject score in Mathematical Methods (he also scored 50 in Physics).

This year Manuth is studying Science at the University of Melbourne.

Lily was thrilled to learn of her Premier’s Award for Environmental Science, a subject she is passionate about.

“I love the diversity of the subject; you look at the historical periods and also the future such as climate change and things we can do locally,” Lily said.

This year she is studying a Bachelor of Environmental Science at RMIT and eventually hopes to work in corporate sustainability.

Both students received their awards on Tuesday 21 July at a special ceremony at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.