-VP Jagdeo says
-gov’t working on modernising learning; examining e-school in Guyana
WHILE a great number of the nation’s educators are eager to return to their classrooms, some headteachers are attempting to muzzle them and Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has called for those principals to be held accountable.
During a press conference on Thursday last at the Office of the President (OP), he highlighted this concerning issue and the detrimental effects of it.
“…When you look at the average school attendance for teachers in school, we have 14,000 teachers. Even before the strike, only 70 per cent were going to school. So, on any given day, we had about 4,000 teachers who were not teaching… Not all of them every day, but different ones.
“So, you have to look at that. And the headteachers have to bear more responsibility in the future. Clearly, in some of the schools, I’ve had cases like two schools now where all the teachers wanted to work and the headteacher didn’t want them to work and threatened them. If they do work, then there will be consequences. Well, there should be consequences against that headteacher, and if they’re intimidating people, then they should not benefit from any of the concessions we make, like the duty-free and everything else.”
While lamenting that educators who want to work should not be intimidated, Dr Jagdeo also pointed out that people take their kids to school and the principals and even some of the teachers are shutting the door in the morning, telling them, “Go home.” The Vice President firmly stated that this should not happen.
Dr Jagdeo underscored that there is a learning loss because of the second strike, this year, which was orchestrated by the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU).
Speaking about the attitude of the GTU, the Vice President stated, “They believe that we should negotiate under duress too. You shouldn’t negotiate under duress.”
Some teachers across the country have resumed strike action in an attempt to sway the government to begin salary negotiations from the year 2019. However, the government is firm in its position that negotiations must begin from 2024 onwards.
MODERNISING EDUCATION
The government has remained firm on its promise to provide better quality education and with that said, options are being explored that will modernise and expand learning in Guyana
The Vice President said that the government is working on an e-school.
“This e-school model, as I said before, maybe in the future if we have a proper e-school model, then parents can choose that rather than physical school. That’s in the future. But a child must be able, even going through an e-school system, to get the same level of tuition and have the same level of success as if they were going to a physical school, and we should present it as an option to the parents of this country,” Dr Jagdeo said.
Dr Jagdeo further spoke on the provision of school fees to parents to send their children to private schools.
He said: “We have to, in the future, examine whether we’ll give parents a voucher to send their children to a private school or not, because if we’re spending $700,000 now per child and it costs $300,000 to pay for the school fees for the child, we might as well give, in some areas, the parents the $700,000 per child and then let them pay for the school kids.”
