THE Ministry of Education (MoE) was able to distribute more than 500, 000 worksheets to public school learners in 2021, as part of its efforts to deliver education during the pandemic.

Some 58,890 worksheets were shared at the nursery level; 239,004 at the primary level, and 235,864 at the secondary level, up to the December 2021 school term.

Subject minister Priya Manickchand came up with the initiative after taking office in August 2020. It formed part of plans to recommence education delivery to public school learners all across the country.

“We prepared curriculum-aligned teacher-created worksheets by grade level for mass distribution; paper-based content being the most equitable resource delivery mechanism in Guyana. Now that’s whole worksheets, not counting number of pages,” the minister noted.

The worksheets were initially planned for distribution to hinterland learners, who were at a disadvantage. However, when it was discovered that many coastland learners were also unable to access education following the closure of schools, the decision was taken to expand the worksheet distribution to every learner in the public school system.

“When we began to share this out in the hinterland and put it online for all our coastal students, coastal students said well we want this because right here in Leopold Street we don’t have connection; right here in Kitty we don’t have enough access to internet. So we did it for the entire country from nursery, Grade One to Grade Six, and secondary schools for terms one, two and three. But then we ran out of money because it’s a very expensive process,” Manickchand added.

The worksheet project was funded as part of the $500 million that was set aside in the MoE’s 2021 budget for the COVID-19 Accelerated Programme. This programme catered for the creation, printing and distribution of worksheets to all learners in the public school system, as well as the expansion of the Guyana Learning Channel, which the ministry used to deliver timetabled content.

The worksheet distribution was initially started in 2020 following the resumption of education delivery. Nothing much had been done from March 2020 when schools were closed because of the pandemic, up to the point when the distribution of the worksheets started.

Manickchand noted that with no plan in place to get education to the learners, she felt the worksheets would work as the best alternative for them to get the notes they needed while they waited for face-to-face classes to resume.

“My thinking …[is that] the kids would have to write down the notes. So I said let’s write all the notes and send it out to the children. Let’s put the work you would’ve been teaching in the classroom into the worksheets so at the beginning you have the lessons and when you turn the page you have exercises and questions and so on that reinforces that lesson. So we did that, especially for the hinterland communities because they are not able to access the learning channel,” Manickchand said.