GUYANA continues to do well at both the Caribbean Secondary School Certificate Examination (CSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). According to results released by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), our Guyanese students have excelled in a number of subjects, including having obtained the overall best in the CXC examinations.

This is not the first time our Guyanese students have taken the spotlight in the regional examinations and from all indications it certainly will not be the last. The education system has shown significant levels of resilience despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Queen’s College has once again demonstrated that it remains the premier secondary school in the country by taking the first spots in both the CSEC and CAPE examinations.

According to an announcement made by the Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, Guyana obtained four of the nine CSEC regional awards established by the CXC examination body. Outstanding performances were recorded in Business, Humanities, History and Technical and Vocational education. According to information released, Samuel Haynes of Buxton, East Coast Demerara was named the Caribbean’s most outstanding student having secured nine Grade Ones at the CAPE examinations. At the CSEC level, Zaynab Shaffie of Industry East Coast Demerara, was named the overall best student with 18 Grade Ones and two Grade Twos.

These are indeed outstanding performances for which the management and staff of Queens College must be given credit. The learning environment has become much more competitive with the establishment of several new secondary schools but Queens College has managed over the years to hold its own as a school of excellence second to none in the country and for that matter the Caribbean as a whole. Even during the difficult years when the PNC administration starved the institution of teaching and learning resources, the school performed well and surpassed the elitist residential President’s College established under the Burnham regime supposedly to offer a balanced and all-round education to a selected number of students. Such was the level of prominence given to the school that President’s College, at one time, consumed more financial resources than the rest of discrete secondary schools in the whole of Region Four! Yet, Queen’s College excelled and outperformed all of the secondary schools in terms of student attainment levels including passes at the CXC examinations.

The school was established in 1844 by Bishop William Percy Austin as an Anglican grammar school for boys and was aimed at educating the colonial elite. In fact, the current site of Bishops High School was the location of Queens College from 1854 to 1918 and it subsequently moved to its current location in 1951. Under the PPP/C, significant rehabilitation and expansion works were done to the school making it the top secondary institution in the country.

It is a fact that the performance of secondary schools has shown marked improvements since the return to office of the PPP/C on October 1992. This is due to several interventions at all levels of the education delivery system not least of which is the expansion of teacher training. Under the PPP/C administration, teacher training was decentralised and several new training centres were established in several parts of the country including Regions Two, Five, Six and Region 10. Through distance education, several hinterland teachers were upgraded and subsequently admitted to the Cyril Potter College of Education. The capacity for teacher training was also increased at the main teacher training centre, the Cyril Potter College of Education.

Only recently, eight hundred trained teachers were added to the education sector, representing the single largest batch of graduate teachers to be injected into the public education system at the different layers. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the graduation exercise took on a hybrid format with participants and graduates using Zoom and special awardees receiving their awards in person.

According to the College principal, Dr. Viola Rowe, the January 2022 graduating class now holds the record of the largest batch of trained teachers of which 198 are trained in early childhood education, 404 as primary trained and 241 as trained secondary school teachers.

These are indeed interesting and solid achievements which are in congruence with the strategic objective of the Education Ministry, namely to have all teachers in the public education system trained. The importance of trained teachers to higher student attainment levels cannot be overemphasised. Studies have shown that student achievement is positively correlated with teacher training and experience. In fact, teaching experience displayed a stronger relationship than other education variables such as school buildings, learning resource materials and curricula.

It is clear that the education sector is on the upward climb since under the PPP/C administration due in large measure to the high priority it has placed on education and human resources development. As pointed out by President, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, all Guyanese children are entitled to education which he said will be achieved by the rolling out of universal access to world class education at the nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary levels.