THE Ministry of Education is playing a key role is laying the education infrastructure to propel the social and economic transformation of the country that would lead to “fairness” in the allocation of state resources to all Guyanese, irrespective of race, gender, region, or religious affiliation.

However, one formidable challenge to the pursuit of fairness is the high poverty level which, according to the World Bank, was 48 per cent (calculated at US$5.50 per day minimum earning per household) in 2019. Given the country’s rapid development, including job creation, this poverty level is likely to decline to 40 per cent by year end (2022).

When a sizeable impact of the country’s oil wealth is realised by 2028-2030, the poverty level is expected to decline to 10 per cent. A bright spark to push forth poverty reduction is for more citizens to acquire a good education. And the PPP/C government says that it is providing the resources to make this happen.

The government’s transformative statement on education is captured in the Education Sector Plan, 2021-2025: “Education has been signalled as a national priority by successive administrations. There was, and continues to be, a clear recognition that greater national development and a reduction in poverty are integrally associated with a sound education system.”

Consistent with this statement, the PPP/C government has ensured that education receives the highest budgetary allocation of G$74.4 billion (or 11.5 per cent) in 2022.

The Ministry of Education has been working to stall and reverse the teacher attrition; increase the number of trained teachers across all schools; reduce the number of ‘out-of-school’ children; expand connectivity; fill existing teaching vacancies swiftly; introduce computer coding; address the posting of teachers to hinterland locations, and continue to strive for excellence in the quest to modernise the education system, through GOAL and other such measures as computer coding and skills-technical development.

The Ministry of Education says that the GOAL (Guyana Online Academy of Learning) scholarship programme (6,000 awards were made in 2021 and 4,500 awards made in 2022) should also attract enough indigenous people to become qualified teachers and to fill vacancies in their communities.

The GOAL project has brought many students who would have been previously excluded from secondary and tertiary education into the higher education stream.

The attrition rate among female teachers is eight-nine per cent compared with two-three per cent for males. Significantly, proportionately more females are trained as teachers compared with males.

For example, there are 69 per cent trained female teachers compared with less than one per cent male trained teachers at the nursery level; while there are 55 per cent female trained teachers at the secondary level compared with 16 per cent for male trained teachers.

The Education Ministry says that its goal is to achieve full training for all 100 per cent of teachers in the system by 2025.

Students’ enrollment in 2017-2018 was “95 per cent at both primary and secondary levels through to grade nine,” but the average daily attendance (2019-2020) at nursery level was 75 per cent; at primary it was 79 per cent, and at secondary it was 74 per cent.

The existing dropout rate is not available but the UNICEF study (2017) notes: “At risk of dropping out are 11.7 per cent for children across grades one to six, and 4.8 per cent across grades seven to nine. Students stay home or drop out of school due to inequities in economic conditions, religion, child labour, abuse, among other factors.”

The Ministry of Education is also moving swiftly to fill 500 teaching vacancies by January 2023. There are currently 178,962 public school students with 11,906 teachers (which provides a ratio of 15 students per teacher).

This ratio varies across regions and at the three school levels: 17.5 students per teacher at primary; 14.1 at the secondary level, and 11.7 at the nursery level. The Education Ministry plans to have all teachers trained (both in coastland and hinterland) by 2025. The status of teachers’ remuneration has recently been hinted upon by the President.

Recognising the need to help immigrants like Venezuelans adjust to their new lives, the Education Ministry has established a Migrant Unit for this purpose. Venezuelan children at schools (nursery, primary, secondary) number 740 as of May 2022.

Those in primary schools are being taught English in an after-school class. The goal is to expand these classes by doubling their number to 30 in 2023. Appreciating diversity in the country’s education system is crucial to building the President’s “One Guyana” society.

To complement the MoE’s leadership role in educational and societal transformation, there are other agencies (both public and private) that are integral to this mission.

There are, for example, the Port Mourant Oil and Gas Institute, and various Technical Vocational and Education Training (VET) programmes for which the Board of Industrial Training (BIT) has oversight responsibility.

Notwithstanding the challenges, Education Minister Priya Manickchand expresses her deep pleasure at the wonderful results Guyanese students have achieved at the 2022 CSEC and CAPE examinations. These accomplishments set the stage for greater things to come.

Yours respectfully,
Dr. Tara Singh