— Education Minister

By Cassandra Khan
GIVEN the multitude of opportunities smart classrooms bring to both teachers and students, in excess of 10 schools in Guyana have been equipped with smart classrooms over the last two years.
Among the 10 schools is Leonora Secondary School in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara). Education Minister, Priya Manickchand, has indicated in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle that the region will soon see two more schools added to that list.

Parika Salem Secondary School and West Demerara Secondary School are poised to be the next two beneficiary sites of government’s smart classroom programme.
These special, enhanced classrooms, Minister Manickchand said, have particularly been useful during the COVID-19 pandemic which drastically affected the operation of education in Guyana.

“We saw how one class or one teacher could be used to teach several hundreds of children from different regions from different locations, different schools at different levels of learning and how massively successful that can be,” Minister Manickchand said.

She related that children are learning differently and the “old chalk and talk” and even textbooks have to be supplemented by other technological means.
“Smart classrooms are really a fantastic, useful movement towards technology assisted learning, as well as in our movement to expand our distance education and how we deliver.

“We’re very happy to be able to expand the number of schools that have smart classrooms,” Minister Manickchand added.
She expressed that her ministry is delighted to continue the progress as smart classrooms are likely to become the new normal for Guyana.

The minister said this will not only expose teachers and students to the benefit of technology-assisted learning, but will also provide a seamless platform for knowledge sharing as teachers from the West Demerara Secondary School, as an example, could export their talent.

In April 2021, Minister Manickchand commissioned a Smart Classroom at Leonora Secondary School in Region Three. It was the first Smart Classroom to be commissioned in the region.
During that commissioning, she said the education sector must continue to cater to the needs of the several generations of students.

Minister Manickchand noted then that such a facility is important not only to the school but to other schools around the country that do not have a smart classroom as yet.
According to the Department of Public Information (DPI), she said that in cases where some schools do not have a specialist teacher in a particular subject area, a teacher from the Leonora Secondary School would be able to assist those students by conducting lessons virtually without having to travel to the other school that require his or her guidance.