-changes to schools’ curriculum being finalised

OVER 50 schools across Guyana are being either constructed or extended in a bid to improve access to education even as the Ministry of Education is finalising changes to schools’ curriculum.

This is according to Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, who made this disclosure during a recent press conference where she provided updates on the expansion of the country’s education sector.

While Guyana has achieved universal primary education, as noted by the United Nations, Manickchand stated that the country is left to achieve universal nursery and secondary education, and, as such, efforts are underway to facilitate this.

“All over Guyana, we want nursery-aged children to be able to access a nursery school. All over Guyana, we want secondary-aged children to be able to access secondary schools,” she said.

This year, she said the government is building nursery schools across the country along with several primary schools and secondary schools.

To this end, she indicated that while many critics have said that building schools mean nothing, this was one of the promises the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) made in its manifesto.

As such, Manickchand noted, “Building a school allows children to go to school. Where there’s no school, there’s no place for children to go so it’s very easy for people to say we could boast about all the schools… To the people in the hinterland, if you don’t have a school, you can’t get a secondary education.”

Meanwhile, as part of increasing access to education and improving education overall, the minister revealed that her ministry is working on a number of game-changing initiatives in relation to schools’ curriculum across the country.

Against this backdrop, concerning literacy, the ministry wants to ensure that all children can read and understand what they are reading by Grade Four.

“So, there’s going to be some curriculum change in and around that and that begins in September. As we speak, material is being produced by our literacy unit in collaboration with our materials production department to make sure we can get our children reading and comprehending,” she said.

As part of this initiative, the ministry will work to ensure that primary schools across the country are equipped with libraries with novels and storybooks.

Added to that, a mathematics intervention is expected to start soon with hopes of seeing improved results both at the primary and secondary levels. That intervention will include the provision of all textbooks, scientific calculators, geometry sets, graph books, past papers and improved and robust training and retraining of the people teaching the subject.

The ministry is also expected to look at the infusion of distance education and how children are learning mathematics through media like the television, the internet and the radio.

Further to this, Manickchand said that there will be a robust intervention in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as in the country currently, these skills are needed.

“We want to make sure that we are able to cater to that market; that we are able to prepare our students who wish to benefit from that sector and you’re going to see that rolled out in our TVET departments,” she said.