Education Minister Shaik Baksh yesterday issued an appeal to University of Guyana students to volunteer at least two hours of their time per week to work with low achievers in their community to improve their literacy level.
He made the call at the launching of a book club at the Sophia Primary School which was part of a series of activities to observe Education Month 2010, held under the theme, “ Child-Friendly Homes: Child-Friendly Classrooms-Quality Education”.
Baksh told the gathering of scores of pupils and teachers that the Ministry of Education, through the National Literacy Unit, is committed to providing the necessary resources to support the initiative which he suggested can be convened at churches and public schools during the week days and at weekends.
He stressed that apart from university students, the Rotary clubs, community leaders and more corporate members of the private sector should also come on board to support the proposed intervention.
An optimistic Baksh said that the move will significantly support the work of teachers in the school system, notably in helping pupils to “spell, write, read what they write, and understand what they read”.
The Minister said that literacy is a concern both in developed and developing countries and locally, several measures have been instituted to address challenges confronting the education system in this regard.
These, he noted, include the Performance Enhancement Project (PEP) which targets the five poorest performing primary and secondary schools in every education district. The Ministry of Education is closely monitoring and providing the necessary support and resources to these schools as the aim is to improve learners’ outcome.
A National Grade Four Certificate will also be introduced from next year. This intervention, Baksh said, will put more pressure on both pupils and teachers to perform, because it will be a prerequisite for the former to sit the National Grade Six Assessment.
Pupils who fail the Grade Four Assessment, he explained, will be given an opportunity to make amends in Grade Five and those who are unsuccessful will most likely be awarded placements at a remedial Six Form secondary school. At these schools, the year one curriculum is designed with heavy emphasis on literacy and numeracy and the aim is to raise these students learning ability to the level of secondary school standards.
Baksh pointed out that the names of those schools with pass rates below 50 per cent at the National Grade Four Assessment will be published in the newspapers.
The minister also renewed his call to teachers at every grade at the primary level to dedicate at least one extra hour, four days per week, after school, to work with weak students to improve their outcomes in the areas of literacy and numeracy.
At the secondary level, students who perform poorly will undergo a series of remediation programmes in the areas of literacy and numeracy to be on track when they enter Grade 10.
The secondary Competency Certificate Programme (SCCP) also came on stream for the first time at Grade Nine at the commencement of this academic year.
The SCCP, which is a technical and vocational programme, offers students an alternative pathway from the academically oriented streams. It aims to stem school drop-outs and ensure secondary school students are adequately prepared for the world of work.
Baksh observed that more teachers are on board his ministry’s drive to shore-up students’ performances both at the primary and secondary levels, and noted that the establishment of libraries, book clubs or reading corners in schools cultivate the ideal environment for learning to prosper.
On that point, he said that the Ministry of Education has been stocking the school system with millions of books and every school should at least have a library. He also used the opportunity to thank the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company for supporting the literacy drive and called on other corporate entities to follow suit, noting that they will be the ultimate beneficiaries in the long run.
Head of the National Literacy Unit, Norma Applewaithe, said that the newly inaugurated book club, called the Arriba Book Club, is part of the Performance Enhancement Project, and Thomas Moore, St. Sidwell’s and Agricola Primary schools are also beneficiaries of a similar intervention.
The club, aptly called Arriba, meaning “upward”, provides children a positive channel for enjoyment, entertainment and knowledge- seeking.
Applewaithe emphasized that reading does not only build the self-esteem of children, but also gives them a sense of well-being and security. She noted too that parents are not isolated from this task.
“ Unfortunately, so many of our children today have not had the luxury of being read to on the lap of their parents, nor have there been many who were nurtured into believing that reading is to mind what exercise is to the body. Unfortunately too, such an activity is considered the job of the teacher; but we do recognize that teachers alone cannot do it all. Some help is required from parents,” she said.
The Head of the National Literacy Unit also told the gathering, which included parents and top officials of the Ministry , that the re-introduction of book clubs in schools is in direct response to the need to raise the standard of literacy in the country.