PRESIDENTIAL Advisor on Youth Empowerment, Mr Aubrey Norton, on Friday presented a quantity of textbooks and officially handed over 25 laptops to the North Ruimveldt Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Night School Programme in Festival City, North Ruimveldt.The presentation of the laptops was done in collaboration with the e-Government Agency, which created Information Technology spaces within the Festival City Youth and Parent Organisation (FCYPO), where the classes are normally held. The agency is conducting a similar exercise in the night schools at Soesdyke and Sophia, where 25 Internet-ready laptops each will also be installed. The Ministry of Education donated the textbooks.
Norton said three pilot night schools were started, in North Ruimveldt, Soesdyke and Sophia, to bridge the education gaps revealed in a 2015 survey. The survey found that a large number of youths had not had the opportunity to write the CSEC examination. Others had not obtained passes in five subjects and several of them had failed to obtain passes in the two core subjects, Mathematics and English Language. The pilots started in May 2016 and will run until May 2017.
“The programme has been fairly successful. We have not had high rates of dropouts and we have a number of students enrolled to do [the exam]. It is with that in mind and recognising the importance of Information Technology to the process we made contact with the e-Government [Agency] and they agreed that they can assist with computers [and] internet connection… Then in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, we got the books that the students need to use to ensure that they are successful,” Mr. Norton said.
A total of 78 students have registered for the 2017 CSEC examination: 37 at Soesdyke, 27 at North Ruimveldt and eight at Sophia. In his charge to the students, Mr Norton encouraged them to stay the course and to capitalise on the opportunities being provided for them to augment their education. “We hope that you make the best use of the resources, treat it as your property,” he said.
Norton also expressed gratitude to the FCYPO for providing the space for the programme. “One of the things [that] we are doing is ensure that these night schools are managed by the youth organisations so that the young people of the community can develop leadership and management skills and can manage their own programmes,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Clarence Garraway, Manager-Enterprise Solutions, Ministry of Public Telecommunications, e-Government Agency said the agency is looking forward to continued collaboration with Mr Norton and his team and the Ministry of Education to ensure the advancement of the programme. “We are happy to provide, not only laptops, but Internet connectivity to the night schools in this pilot programme. It is in keeping with e-Government’s own action plan moving forward to not only increase the reach of education in Guyana, but also to provide the means of enabling jobs to be created… with this night school… when you, the students, increase your level of education, you’ll be better equipped to walk into the workplace and to sustain yourself as well as to contribute towards the economy of Guyana,” he said.
In an invited comment, Ms Marquesas Primo, a student enrolled in the North Ruimveldt programme, lauded its benefits. “I find it very beneficial not only for students, who wrote CXC and didn’t [get] good grades, but for students, who didn’t write and [those] like myself, who want to add a few other subjects,” she said, adding that the donation of computers “was very good… I find a lot of students want to do EDPM [Electronic Document Preparation and Management] and every job you go for these days, you have to be computer literate, so it will be very beneficial for the school and the students.”
Leroy Adolphus, Co-ordinator of the Sophia Night School; Mr Ian Smith, Coordinator of the Soesdyke Night School and Ms Denise Miller, Coordinator of the North Ruimveldt CSEC Night School Programme; Ms Adeti DeJesus, of the Office of the Presidential Advisor on Youth Empowerment and students enrolled at the three schools also attended the presentation ceremony. (MOTP)