THE PHYSICAL Education Department within the Allied Arts Unit of the Ministry of Education, tasked with implementing physical education in all the schools throughout the country, completed a three-day pilot project where some 23 teachers benefited at the Christianburg Community Centre in Linden last Friday.
Physical Education Officer Mr Lindley Langhorne said, “What we are charged with is to implement physical education in all schools throughout the country. So we had workshops in a number of regions before; some of the teachers in Linden were all exposed to this sort of workshop.
But I saw it fit for them to have better exposure of this, so we brought it back to this district once again so they can all benefit, while the region can now benefit from the programme which the ministry is making available.”
He explained that “while we have had a number of other workshops of this same type around the country, the difference with what is being held in Region 10 is the talking of a pilot programme for the planning and delivery of the physical education classes in schools.
“What we are really doing here is part of a pilot programme with Region 10 being the place which we normally do things first in the country and this is one of the cases. The way in which these physical education classes are planned was found lacking in some areas by the department, upon examination.
“So we designed a new plan to address all of the areas where we were lacking and it is a new way in which these teachers now would be required to plan their class and somewhat implement it.”
Mr Langhorne was quick to add that it is not something new, that they are trying to re-invent the wheel. Physical Education has always been a part of the schools’ programme, but what is happening now is that they are having new ideas, new ways in which they are going to go about doing these things, as they seek to take it throughout the length and breadth of Guyana.
It is a new plan by the Physical Education Department based in Georgetown to deliver Physical Education within the schools in all the regions and Linden happened to be the first region selected to implement this plan.”
Langhorne stressed: “We will see how it will work and then further on, we can take it with its success to other parts of the country.”
Langhorne added “We know that at the CSEC Level you have examinations. So what we are looking for is when they reach the level for CSEC exams, they are properly prepared both mentally and physically to deal with these exams and that is what these workshops are working on directly.”
Facilitators were provided by the Physical Education Department in Georgetown and there were also four Chinese volunteers who worked along in this workshop.