MoE has measured success finding NGSA dropouts
Chief Education Officer Dr. Marcel Hutson
Chief Education Officer Dr. Marcel Hutson

–over 100 of the 559 located to date

OVER 100 of the more than 559 Grade Six pupils who did not write the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) have already been located by the Ministry of Education (MoE), while efforts are still ongoing to find the others, and have them properly educated.

Speaking on the issue on Tuesday at a media brunch, Chief Education Officer, Dr. Marcel Hutson reported that welfare officers in the various regions have been mandated to locate the children, and thus far a number of reasons have been unearthed as to why they did not write their examinations.

“We found in excess of 100 of those children, but it’s a very tricky situation. We had welfare officers go out into the communities to find them, and we have discovered that some of them would have migrated during the ‘COVID’ period; some of them actually moved from one community into another community, and so what we did was issue a document, which REDOs would have complied with, where, once the children have been found, they are to be placed in a secondary school, accordingly, so they are not left hanging,” Dr. Hutson explained.

It was in October, at the announcement of the 2021 NGSA results, that it was revealed that while 14,380 pupils were scheduled to write the examinations, only 13,821 had eventually turned up to do so, which meant that some 559 pupils would have missed the bus, and were possibly on the verge of dropping out of school.

“As I know it, over 100 of them were located and placed into schools, but we are constantly searching for these children, and we will find them,” Dr. Hutson vowed, adding: “It is for their parents now to respond to what we are asking of them, and, of course, help will be forthcoming if they need that.”

STARK REALITY
Dr. Hutson acknowledged that the harsh economic circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic did contribute to the dropping out of some of the children, since, in some cases, the parents cannot afford to send them to school, or they would have had to go on to assist in contributing to the household. These situations were particularly common in the case of single-parent households.

“Some of them, we heard things like they went on to have to support their families. Some people have lost their jobs and so on, and the child went to support them; some people went into small-scale farming, especially in the hinterland, and we had the issue of single parents, and that also affected the children, because it’s not a case that both parents were there, so the pressure was on,” he explained.

However, in those cases where pupils are out of school due to economic circumstances, the ministry will be looking to assist them.

“The Minister did say if it is a financial issue that they have, we are willing to help; if it’s an issue of transportation or food or clothing, at the level of the minister’s office, the decision was taken that once we find these people, and they have these kind of difficulties, whatever help can be given to them financially to help alleviate the problems that they are experiencing, that will be given to them, so that they can be in the school; because we believe the best place for them to be right now, is in the school system. So we will continue to look for them,” Dr. Hutson said.

HIGH DROPOUT RATE
Guyana has a high dropout rate at the primary school level, with the repercussions showing up in the workforce. According to data from the Bureau of Statistics, as of 2020, over 55 per cent of the country’s workforce has primary-school level education or less. The country has maintained this high percentage since 2017.

As Guyana develops as an oil-and-gas nation, the education deficit poses a challenge and impediment to lobbying for local content policies, as there are not many qualified Guyanese to fill many roles in the industry.

Commenting on what would be done about the situation with the 559 dropouts, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand at the time the announcement was made pledged that the MoE will be assiduously investigating to find where the pupils were, and the reasons why they did not write their NGSA. She emphasised that not a single child will be left to drop out of school.

Addressing the issue on Tuesday, Minister Manickchand noted that the MoE is not only looking at school dropouts at the primary school level, but looking to put in place programmes to address school dropouts throughout the school system.

“We don’t want children at the Grade Nine level gone, and we don’t know where you are. We are looking at more individualised teaching and learning going forward. Everybody sitting in a class is not going to be able to bring in 12 Grade Ones for a particular stream,” she said, adding:

“The children finding themselves leaving school at Grade 9 and Grade 8 because they really don’t think they are going to be that student who produces 15 subjects, and are struggling with English and Math, as it is, specific programmes are going to be built around them, making sure that those students can leave with value added to them at the secondary school; value that would allow them to earn.”

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