DIRECTOR of the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD), Mr. Mohandatt Goolsarran, said the centre is working in a robust and comprehensive programme to address the literacy problem in Guyana. “In this way we hope to have sustainable interventions…to be effective, we have to involve stakeholders across different borders,” he said.
Goolsarran made it clear that this sustainable approach is facilitated by a strong political will, since government has committed substantial resources to its success.
He explained that, in terms of a policy change, moves are being made to ensure that every Guyanese is literate within the next three to four years.
“We have programmes in and out of school. In school we have literacy programmes and out of school we are extending our interventions,” Goolsarran said.
He noted that efforts are being continued to have literacy programmes integrated into the curriculum, as well as initiate an hour-and-a-half remediation programme after school, which would be rolled out by school teachers.
The NCERD Director pointed out, too, that NCERD is partnering with adult institutions, employers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), as well as the Guyana Defence Force and the Prison Service.
“The flexibility of our programmes, especially for the adult population we are targeting, is very important to ensure that we can reach these people,” he said.
Goolsarran added that capacity-building is being done at different levels and include peer educators, literacy educators and regional supervision, among others.
He said, “We have monthly reports coming in to assess the effectiveness of our programmes, and there are also the tests that are done before and after to determine how successful the interventions were.”
The NCERD Director pointed out that these undertakings have received much support at the community level and sports clubs; religious groups and others are among those in support.
“We are striving to wipe out illiteracy in three or four years from Guyana and once we do this we will be able to boast that we have achieved the MDG (Millennium Development Goal) of enhancing education in Guyana,” Goolsarran said.
The second MDG, ‘Achieve universal primary education’, stipulates that by 2015, all children can complete a full course of primary schooling: all girls and boys must be included in enrollment at primary education level, completion of primary education and literacy of 15-24-year-olds must be achieved.
Goolsarran said the centre is a pivot aspect of the literacy advancements because the requisite expertise is based there, and NCERD functions at a national development level to move the sector along in line with the Education Ministry’s policy.