–Education Ministry records highest student turnout since pandemic, Manickchand says

AS another batch of pupils triumphantly conquered the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), the Ministry of Education has lauded their efforts as well as that of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), hailing this year’s turnout the largest since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a video which was posted on the ministry’s Facebook page on Saturday, Minister Manickchand declared the examination “a massive success”.

She said: “We just concluded a massively successful two days in the country from the Ministry of Education’s perspective. We [have] just finished the NGSA 2024, and so, to parents, teachers and particularly our pupils, I say warmest congratulations for this entire process. I want to thank the CXC employees across the country who worked to supervise, invigilate, and manage this process.”

The Caribbean-wide examination went off without a hitch this year, the minister said.

During the COVID-19 period, no ministry felt the effects as much as education did. The sector is now making an impressive comeback, with this year seeing the largest student turnout since the pandemic.

“I’m happy to say that we have 95 per cent of the attendance registered, because we can’t get from very far-flung regions [or] schools. We have a three per cent absentee rate, which is too high; one per cent would be too many for me, but I expect this to come down, because we have not reconciled the numbers.”

She went on to underscore the remarkable impact of the ministry’s robust management systems, stating, “I want to say that since COVID-19, this is the best we have seen in terms of turnout; in terms of the least number of children absent, and that speaks really well to us managing the system. I mean, we’re not talking about ‘COVID’ anymore, but we are still managing a system that was really wrecked in many ways by COVID-19. I’m very, very glad to see that we are retaining more children in the system and working to do that. And I think it’s some of our measures.”

Among the impactful initiatives cited by Minister Manickchand was the ministry’s dedicated feeding programme, a crucial component of its holistic approach.

“We delivered over 49,500 meals between the course of Thursday and Friday to our children – breakfast, lunch, or hot meals in the hinterland across the country. That was also a massively successful programme.”

In an effort to alleviate anxiety surrounding the results, the minister emphasised that these will be released on or before July 5.

“Parents can plan holidays around that date and so on. Of course, something I’ve put in place since my previous time in the ministry, you’re going to be able to access your results online with your candidate number, and we’re going to be showing various programmes on the Guyana Learning Channel and elsewhere that your children can participate in and get some knowledge while they have some fun in an entertaining way. Maybe Spanish, maybe a different language, maybe some first form mathematics,” she added.

In concluding her comments, she spoke directly to the pupils who wrote the two-day assessment.

“We are very, very, very glad that we had such a big success over the last two days. I want to say to all the children, you must be very relieved and you should be. You now have a nice four months stretching in front of you. So take a week off and then make some goals for yourself about what you want to do over these four months. Whether it is to get fitter, eat better, learn a language on Duolingo, do some more mathematics, advance maybe from where you are [or] get a literature book and start reading.”