…says Minister Baksh
School children have about three weeks more before schools re-open on September 6th, and Education Minister Shaik Baksh has said the last school year was challenging, but maintained that a number of steps are being taken to have the new school year begin on a positive note. He explained that the challenges in 2009-2010 were as a result of the implementation of the Education Sector’s new five year strategic plan.
The plan addresses key areas including the delivery of quality education, achieving universal secondary education, teacher education, special-needs education and school health nutrition and HIV/AIDS. The plan will tackle areas including strengthening managerial capacity, establishing universal education, improving teacher education system, delivering quality education and improving inclusiveness for children with special needs. The Education Strategic Plan is dubbed as very critical to government’s vision for achieving development in the education sector.
The Minister noted that in particular, the strategic plan focuses on four areas: teacher education and training, the advancement of information technology in schools, the literacy and numeracy programme, and the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET).
Baksh made it clear that several moves are being made to address these.
“The reform is in full swing,” he said.
On this note, he added that for the new school year, infrastructure, the school feeding programme and the uniform provision are specific areas of focus.
Baksh said a total of $997M is being expended across the regions to undertake maintenance and repairs, which are expected to improve the general condition of the institutions, primarily the sanitation blocks.
Seventy one of these projects are being undertaken in Georgetown at a cost of $71M. He noted that to date, works are between 75 and 80 per cent complete, and by September they should be 90 per cent finished.
For those that are not finished, Baksh said, works will be stopped until the school year breaks in December for the Christmas holidays.
The Education Minister added that relative to Capital Works, some $1B is being spent on new facilities.
These include a new Leonora Secondary School and a primary school in Parfaite Harmonie, both in Region Three (Essequibo Islands/ West Demerara); and dormitories for the Waramadong and Paramakatoi secondary schools, among others.
Another initiative being advanced is the school feeding programme, which costs some $1.2B, and has three components: the ‘Biscuits and Juice’ programme, which costs $800M; the ‘Hot Meals’ programme, costing $360M; and the $13M ‘Cassava bread, peanut butter and juice’ programme.
The Education Minister said the latter two will be extended, the Hot Meals’ programme to 26 other schools, and the ‘Cassava bread, peanut butter and juice’ programme to 29 schools.
Baksh added that a review was done for this initiative to ensure that for the new school year there are no problems with the supplies.
Among the hiccups he cited were timely transportation of the supplies to schools, problems with storage of the supplies and problems with the juices.
With regard to the latter, Baksh said the Ministry has a written guarantee on the quality of the juices by the suppliers.
To address the storage issue, he said, capacity is being built and a schedule is being worked out to enhance the efficiency of the transportation system.
“All the schools reported that they are satisfied,” Baksh said.
The Education Minister pointed out that the attendance rate in the schools where the programmes are being run have improved, noting that assessing the initiative’s  impact on performance will be more long term.
With the uniform provision initiative, Baksh said approximately 177,000 students will benefit and another 30,000 in the hinterland areas.
In the hinterland areas, vouchers are not provided and with the help of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, uniforms are being sewed.
Baksh added that over 130,000 uniform vouchers have been issued and others are still to be uplifted.
All primary and secondary school students will benefit from this undertaking.
The Education Minister maintained that several things are being done to address various issues to prepare for a better school year 2010-2011.