GUYANESE students continue to excel at the CSEC and CAPE examinations. In the words of Education Minister Priya Manickchand, “Our students have performed excellently once again…This is evident that our education system is thriving and doing better and better as we go along.”

The fact is that the quality of education delivery has significantly improved, thanks to the emphasis placed on education by the PPP/C administration. This is quite unlike what transpired under the previous PNC administration when the education sector was starved of resources, both financial and human. The situation had deteriorated to a point when Guyana was at the very bottom of the performance ladder, both at the CSEC and CAPE examinations.

Guyana has come a long way since the days when our students were underperforming not because they lacked the ability to do better but because the system had failed them. The problem was essentially systemic and resulted in a dysfunctional system due to a lack of adequate funding and incompetence.

This year, Guyana has the honour of having its students copping several awards including the overall best at both the CSEC and the CAPE examinations. Alex Muntaz of the Anna Regina Secondary School copped 23 Grade Ones and four Grade Two passes.

He also won the most outstanding Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) student award for the region. Other notable performances came from Naresh Jagnanan who is this year’s top CAPE student. Abigail Stephanas copped the award for the most outstanding Science student and Nailah Rahaman was named the most outstanding student in Humanities while Siddiq Gafar was awarded the best student in Business.

These outstanding performances by our Guyanese students are worth celebrating and comes at a time when the PPP/C administration is doing everything possible to improve and enhance the delivery of quality education. Only recently President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali announced significant adjustments to the salaries of senior teachers, including the granting of motor vehicle concessions to those eligible.

Teacher training has been intensified and billions of dollars are spent on the enhancement of the education infrastructure. Through the National Centre for Education Resource Development (NCERD) learning and teaching resources are constantly updated and new and more effective measurement and evaluation tools are being developed.

Put differently, a comprehensive and holistic approach to the delivery of quality education is currently in place which allows not only for a better quality of education delivery but also better access to quality education. This is evident from the much better spread of top performers which unlike the past is not confined only to a few city schools but across the 10 regions of Guyana.
It is not accidental that Anna Regina Secondary School has copped the top students awards at the regional examinations on multiple occasions. In fact, the schools were named the CSEC school of the year by the CXC in 2022.

This is no mean achievement for which full credit must be given to the management of the school for once again copping the overall best performing student in the person of Alex Muntaz.
It is significant also that our male students have copped the top CSEC awards this year especially when seen against the tendency of our female students to generally outperform their male counterparts. The syndrome of ‘male underachievement’ is a regional if not global phenomenon and credit is due to our males who seem, if only momentarily, to put a break on that cycle.

Congratulations are in order to all those students who excelled, their parents/guardians and their teachers. This is indeed a proud moment for them all. They have done not only themselves, but their country proud.