– features live chat, quizzes, tests for children
THE eagerly awaited Ministry of Education (MOE) website which was launched yesterday will allow teachers to share information and best practices and through its live chat feature citizens will be able to speak to education officials as well as the Minister of Education.
The website also caters for children to take quizzes and tests that can be marked and returned to them via an email account.
Speaking yesterday at the launch of the MOE website at Cara Lodge, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand through a ‘digital speech’ acknowledged the hard work of her staff in order to deliver a comprehensive yet user-friendly website.
She noted that “Guyana functions in a modern world where information and communication technologies play a critical role, and as such the MOE is cognisant of this.”
Manickchand also explained that “with the projection to have all secondary schools equipped with computer labs by the end of 2014, and with 90,000 Guyanese targeted to benefit from the One Laptop Per Family initiative and more access to and use of cell phones, the MOE believes this website will be beneficial to all.”
She said that the “website will contain all our policies and textbooks, quizzes, exam papers, curriculum and our aim is to be more accessible to parents, teachers and our children.”
Meanwhile Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, performing the duties of the President of Guyana, said, “I am very pleased to witness the launch of the website, and I am also pleased that we are making use of the technologies that are available to us. After some years of work and study and applications we see the launches but we don’t see the work that is put into the specific launch.”
Prime Minister Hinds said it should be noted that the Government sees education as a vital necessity for every individual and therefore places a lot of emphasis on its development.
“We in the Government place a lot of emphasis on education, we place some 14% of the budgeted money towards education,” he said.
Phil Mingo, Head of Information Systems at the Ministry of Education explained that the website boasts various functions, with an interactive portal with access to a wide variety of essential online information concerning the local education sector. He noted that this new website is designed to be easily utilised by parents, teachers and students of all grades.
Mingo also explained that the information on the site will range from curriculum guides, past test papers, CSEC and CAPE syllabuses, to colouring packets and interactive videos for nursery children, interactive quizzes for primary age children from grades 2-6, tips for parents and teachers as well as a host of education policy documents among other important information. He also pointed out by performing the quiz via projector just how user-friendly the website is.
(By Rebecca Ganesh-Ally)
