THE Ministry of Education plans to launch adult and community-based literacy programmes across the country in 2022, while simultaneously tackling illiteracy among public school students.
Speaking at a media luncheon at Cara Lodge on Monday, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand emphasised the ministry’s desire to continue focusing on improving the country’s human resources.
She noted that while Guyanese students continue to do well in English at the national examinations, there still remains an issue with illiteracy among the population. In this regard, the ministry will be leading the way in addressing this issue.
“We are going to be re-establishing the adult literacy programme in communities. We are going to be implementing workplace literacy programmes in at least 10 organisations for 2022. We will be expanding the community-based literacy programmes in various communities in all education districts for out-of-school youths and dropouts, who have low literacy rates. We expect to target at least 3,500 children,” the minister explained to the media.
The community programme will be complemented by a similarly rigorous strategy in the schools.
“We’ve been doing well in English at all the exit exams, primary as well as secondary, but we are seeing gaps that if not plugged now will continue to leave too many children behind. So our literacy programme and our literacy target is that every single child must be able to read and understand what they are reading by Grade Four and that’s a mandate across the ministry that begins immediately,” Manickchand noted.
This announcement comes following the establishment of a new Literacy Unit at the MoE which is being headed by the Assistant Chief Education Officer (Primary), Samantha Williams.
It was earlier this year that Minister Manickchand had first noted the MoE’s intention to put increased emphasis on literacy following the results of the 2021 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), as a number of students got zero scores due to their inability to read their examination papers.
Illiteracy and the high primary school dropout rate are national issues in Guyana. Over 50 percent of the country’s working-age population have a primary school education or less.
As the literacy programmes are rolled out, specific emphasis will be placed on hinterland communities.
“We have established a new literacy unit headed by one of our premier experts. We will train 150 community workers and volunteers as literacy coaches. We are going to target literacy training for teachers in Regions One, Seven, Eight and Nine, as well as conduct several literacy competitions,” Manickchand said.
