THE National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD) has organised several workshops aimed at enhancing capacity in the sector.

One such, of three-day duration, started Tuesday, through collaboration between the Ministry of Education and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

With the focus on child friendly schools, the objective is the ultimate establishment of such institutions in all 10 Administrative Regions.

Continuing in the NCERD auditorium, Kingston, Georgetown, the participants are education officers and teacher trainers, who are discussing required components for the type of school in the 21st Century; the costs of and benefits from them; their functioning in protective environments and mainstreaming the concept.

One of the facilitators, Mrs. Evelyn Hamilton said the exercise is to fulfill the mandate of the Education Strategic Plan.

“The plan has a goal of making 25 child friendly schools annually, so that, at the end of five years, there should be 125 such countrywide,” she said.

Hamilton explained that those schools would emphasise improved physical infrastructure, better curriculum, enhanced delivery of education, inclusion of parents and the community in the process and involving the children to actively participate.

“At the end of the day, we are expecting quality in learning and output,” she said.

WHOLE CHILD
Assistant Chief Education Officer (Primary), Ms. Bibi Shariman Ali added that the initiative takes into consideration the whole child.

We try to look at the psychological, emotional, physical and intellectual needs of the child. If a child is happy to go to school, then that child’s output would be better,” she opined.

Ali said the objectives of the workshop were to understand the comprehensive nature of child friendly schools; the responsibilities of duty-bearers, identify the needs of teachers and the schools and integrate best practices of methodologies for quality education.

In relation to quality education, NCERD Director, Mr. Mohandatt Goolsarran said this and several other workshops are a quintessential element to ensure capacity building in the education sector.

Of the rest, one, today and tomorrow, will surround language, another, on September 22 and 23 will concentrate on social studies and a third, September 24 and 25, on information technology (IT).

The last is geared to equip teachers with the skills necessary to make use of computer-aided education.

Goolsarran pointed out that NCERD has 600 computer systems which will be distributed to schools across this country and the criteria for distribution is to recipients of average or below average performance according to geographic location.

However, the preceding workshops are part of the Computer for Schools Project for preparing educators, he said.

Goolsarran said, if teachers, after some training, are able to make maximum use of computer-aided education, their delivery would be better and the students’ output as well.

SIMILAR NUMBER
The 40 teachers trained this week, under the supervision of Ms. Marcia Thomas and Mr. Sheldon Blair, are in addition to a similar number who benefitted previously during the first half of the August holidays, he said.

Goolsarran said 40 more will undergo the same process by the end of October as NCERD presses on with the task to train 150 teachers.

He said NCERD’s commitment to the accomplishment is physically evident as it transformed a section of its building to accommodate another laboratory.

Goolsarran also said NCERD is in a position to provide school-based tutelage at the end of the IT workshops to further assist schools.
He said all the activities were towards fulfilling the Education Ministry mandate to secure better education for all Guyanese children