GUYANA’S Education Ministry, on Thursday, received 200 electronic tablets and 8,000 ‘Access to Education in Guyana’ brochures from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), a statement from the ministry said.

The ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Alfred King, said one of the agency’s priorities is to ensure access and improved quality of education for all school-aged children in Guyana.
He said that the ministry is trying to use all the possible resources or partnerships to support learners when they are in school and even at home.

He expressed the commitment of the Government of Guyana to ensure children who are vulnerable or from disadvantaged situations are supported to remove barriers that restrict their access to the formal education system.

Mr. King added that integral to these efforts is the necessary technological inputs and as such on behalf of the Minister of Education and staff of the Ministry, he welcomed the UNHCR’s involvement by making the donations possible.

Meanwhile, the Coordinator of the Risk Management and Migrant Support Section (RM&MSS) of the Ministry of Education, Mrs. Rampattie Prashad-Bisnauth, lauded that the information printed on the brochure is presented in both English and Spanish.

A large number of migrant children in Guyana have origins in Venezuela.
Moving forward, she said that her unit will examine how enrolment forms for children into the school system could be translated to Spanish to make the process of incorporating Spanish-speaking children more efficient.

Head of the UN Refugee Agency in Guyana, Cecilie Guerrero lauded the close relationship her agency enjoys with the Education Ministry.

She said that the ‘Access to Education in Guyana’ brochure was developed by the Ministry with support from the UNHCR to give parents of migrant children guidance on how to enrol their children into the formal school system in Guyana.

She said that the guide gives instructions to not only parents who possess all the documents required for enrolment but to those parents who do not have all the documents to let them know how their children can still be enrolled.

“So we are very thankful that we are together and can have this distributed to the schools and UNHCR will also do our part to distribute through our community network,” she noted.
Regarding the tablets, she said that the UN agency recognises the importance of technology and will advocate for other donor agencies to come on board and contribute similar items to promote education through technology.

UNHCR’s Associate Programme Officer, Leila Mamadashvillie; MOE’s Assistant Chief Education Officer (Examinations), Ameer Ali; and Deputy Chief Education Officer (Amerindian and Hinterland Education Development), Marti DeSouza were also present for Thursday’s donation.