–as uniform assistance drive gets underway

WHILE the Ministry of Education continues to provide the necessary infrastructure and materials needed for the country’s children to receive the quality of education needed for their development, parents have a key role to play to ensure their children excel academically.

This was expressed by Minister of Education Priya Manickchand who visited and interacted with parents and teachers of the Diamond/Grove Primary School Wednesday, when she consulted with the parents on the procedure for the distribution of the $10,000 cash grant which is scheduled to be distributed in September.

The Minister was accompanied by Permanent Secretary Delma Nedd, her advisor Melcita Bovell and other education officials.
“We need you to be fully involved in your children’s education, we need you to know what we are teaching, we need you to know what level your children are at,” Minister Manickchand told the large gathering.
There have been concerns raised about the private schools topping the country at National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA). Minister Manickchand explained that what is lacking in the public system is parent/teacher partnership, and this issue must be addressed immediately.

“The one common factor running through the child who did well at NGSA and CXC is that fact they had supportive parents,” Minister Manickchand said, while urging the parents to collaborate with the teachers.

The Education Minister highlighted the enormous investments in the education sector over the past two decades, which have resulted in Guyana being at the best place it has ever been in education, not only at Diamond/Grove, but across the country.
Nursery education is not compulsory in Guyana; however, 85% of the country’s nursery age children are attending school, which is the highest percentage in the Caribbean. Additionally, with the new readers published by the ministry which will be introduced in the school system by September, Grade 4 children will be more literate.

“We are putting out the readers and we have trained every teacher…what we don’t see is the involvement of parents and we want you to reinforce what we are teaching at home; you don’t have to know to read and write to be good parents, you just need to know how your children are doing in school,” she stated.
Guyana, 20 years from now, depends on how a parent supports his or her children’s education, she posited.
When asked about the distribution of the cash grant, the parents told the minister that they prefer the money to be disbursed through the bank. Minister Manickchand told the parents that

the ministry is still to consult with the banks to see if an arrangement can be worked out.

This initiative was introduced this year by Government, which will see the sum of $10,000 being allocated to every child in the public system. The initiative is expected to benefit 188,406 families of the students of nursery, primary, and secondary schools, and will cost a total of $2 B.

During Wednesday’s event, the annual uniform voucher was also distributed to parents to be used to make purchases at accredited stores. Minister Manickchand also warned that the Ministry will not accept the hike in uniform prices. She said that the Ministry will not hesitate to withdraw its credit from any store which condones such action.

Parents also had the opportunity to raise concerns, among which were students loitering during school hours, plumbing issues at the school, weeding of the compound and the deteriorating road leading to the school.

Minister Manickchand promised that a Welfare Officer will visit the area more often, and as it relates to the other issues, the ministry will make representation to the Local Government Ministry which is responsible for them.
One parent raised a concern about her child not being accepted in the Diamond Nursery school which was recently constructed with support from the

Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) under the Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF).
Minister Manickchand explained that one of the agreements with the bank is to not have more than 120 students attending the school, therefore students in a certain catchment area will be enrolled.