Georgetown nursery school’s quiz competition…
A confident and well-spoken Selecia Williams of St. Gabriel’s Nursery yesterday outdid her competitors and in doing so helped her school to emerge as champion of the Department of Georgetown annual Nursery School Quiz Competition. Williams scored 60 points in the five-round contest which placed her well ahead of Tia Chung of Precious Jewels Nursery who copped the second place with 35 points at the well-attended occasion convened at the St. Gabriel’s Nursery School.
Keenan Richards of Lodge Nursery School secured the third position with 25 points. The first, second and third place winners each received a trophy in recognition of their achievement, while the other participants from Bell Air, Huston, Campbellville, South Road, Smyth Street and Roxanne Burnham nursery schools were presented with certificates.
During the lively two hour competition, which was part of activities for Education Month 2010, the pupils were quizzed on several areas of general knowledge and reasoning, notably in science, social students and numeracy.
And in most instances, they responded favourably, winning applause from scores of parents including a few males, as well as teachers, fellow pupils and education officials who made it a duty to attend the occasion.
Assistant Chief Education Officer (Nursery) Doodmattie Singh, addressing the gathering of the 34th such Competition organized by the Department of Education Georgetown, praised the parents who took time out from their busy schedule to witness the competition.
She pointed out that parents have an important role to play in their children’s education and underlined the importance of their beginning the process of moulding their charges at an early age.
Ms. Singh stressed that the nation’s children are its future leaders and the Ministry of Education has introduced several initiatives to make the classroom more child-friendly and to improve both the quality of delivery of teachers and students’ outcome.
Education Month is being observed under the theme “Child-Friendly Homes: Child-Friendly Classrooms-Quality Education”.
Education Minister Shaik Baksh had recently noted that while his ministry has been able to achieve Universal Primary and Secondary Education, there is only about 80 per cent coverage at the nursery level.
But he stressed that strides are being made to increase attendance at the latter and was upbeat that Universal Nursery Education can be achieved in another two to three years.
The Ministry of Education has been making encouraging progress in this regard, notable with the school feeding programme; and Baksh said that now the school uniform programme includes the nursery level, the goal of Universal Nursery Education is coming closer to reality.
He said too that new education legislation currently at the Attorney General’s Chambers seeks to make enrollment of children at three years, nine months at a pre-primary school compulsory.
Parents who fail to comply, he said, will be placed before the court.