– charges parents, teachers with correcting the situation
EDUCATION Minister Shaik Baksh says he’s dissatisfied with the performance of Region One (Barima/Waini) students, and is urging parents and teachers there to work collectively on improving the situation.
He issued the charge at a recent meeting with teachers at the Port Kaituma Primary School to outline his Ministry’s interventions to improve the delivery and quality of education and to listen to their concerns.
Baksh pointed out that through the Guyana Basic Education Training Programme (GBET) significant effort has been made to upgrade teachers, and that every teacher who has completed training at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) will have to return to serve their region.
He lauded the dedicated teachers in the remote region and said that, despite a few challenges, every teacher has to “step up to the plate” if the region is going to perform better at national and regional examinations.
Headteachers, the Minister said, have to play a more proactive role in ensuring that their teachers deliver in the classroom and, on that score, he appealed to the teachers to dedicate at least one hour of their time after school to correct the weaknesses of slow learners.
Region One was way below the national average at the recent National Grade Six Assessments (NGSA).
Baksh informed the gathering that his Ministry will be closely monitoring teachers in the region as he wants to see a turnaround in students’ poor performance in English and Mathematics at the National Grade Six Assessments (NGSA) and the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.
But he noted that these and other interventions by teachers to improve students’ performance will not improve unless parents are fully supportive.
Baksh underscored the importance of parents’ involvement in their children’s education and said that a Ministry team will soon be meeting with Region One parents to edify them of their roles and responsibilities in this regard.
He said, too, that guidance and counselling officers from his Ministry will also conduct workshops with teachers in the region to enlighten them of their extended roles as social workers and counsellors.
Baksh explained that these initiatives are necessary to successfully address the truancy rate in the region and other problems affecting students and emphasized that incidents of drug, sex and alcohol abuses, or similar types of deviant behaviour, will not be tolerated.
He underlined that the primary goal of his Ministry is to ensure that every child leaves school with a sound education and said that the Government has invested heavily in the Education sector to make this happens.
The Minister noted that the Government has been building new schools and renovating existing structures, as well as providing the requisite resources for their functioning.
In addition, he said students receive free text books and uniforms, and that teachers’ salaries have been increasing steadily but incrementally.  He stressed that the latter have to put their shoulders to the wheel to ensure that Government gets value for money.
Baksh, who was accompanied by Deputy Chief Education Officer (Development) Roopnarine Tewari, Education for All/Fast Track Initiative (EFA/FTI) Coordinator, Edward Jarvis, Regional Chairman Fermin Singh, and Regional Education Officer Darrel Crammer, expressed similar sentiments at a separate meeting with teachers and headteachers at the Horosoro Primary School.