WITH Guyana’s migrant population continually growing, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand has said that programmes are being crafted to ensure the smooth integration of migrant children in schools across the country.

The minister disclosed this last week during a press conference hosted by the Education Ministry at the National Centre for Education Research Development (NCERD) where she provided updates on the country’s education sector.

According to Manickchand, there are a large number of migrant children, currently in classrooms across the country.

“They number more than 3,000 in the classroom and as they came in our policy in Guyana is that nobody, no child should be denied education,” she revealed.

As they are integrated into classrooms, the education ministry is crafting programmes to ensure that integration is in the children’s best interest.

Against this backdrop, she indicated that they are working on making English a second language, something that is administered to those students in a practicable way that allows them to integrate with other subjects.

As this is being pursued, these programmes, Manickchand added, will be rolled out shortly.

Giving an example of how this integration process is being done, she noted that, last year, for the first time, pupils sitting the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) who were from Spanish-speaking countries were offered options in relation to writing the examination.

She said: “We have such a high migrant population we offered the students who speak or derive from Spanish-speaking countries, Cuba or Venezuela the ability to write their papers in Spanish. So, they could have read it in Spanish and written in English [or] read it in English and written in Spanish…”

The same option was again offered this year. (Shamar Meusa)