THE Ministry of Education’s Distance Education Unit (DEU) is revolutionising education and redefining what it means to learn with the launch of its EDPAL Plus Learning App on Monday at the Ramada Princess Hotel.
Alongside this, the Unit also announced the commencement of a Media Mentorship Programme that will include theoretical framework for varying creative skills and will provide hands-on experience with seasoned professionals in the media field to participants. Over the course of two weeks, the programme will cover photography, videography, pre-production, video editing, and audio production.
This year’s Mentorship Programme has participants from multiple schools, including New Campbellville Secondary School, Charlestown Secondary, Brickdam Secondary, Bladen Hall Secondary, St. Ignatius Secondary, Central High School, Corentyne Comprehensive High School, Fort Wellington Secondary, J.C. Chandisingh Secondary, West Demerara Secondary, and the Richard Ishmael Secondary School, among others.
The launch of the EDPAL Plus Learning App and the Media Mentorship Programme by the DEU represents an important conversation about the future of education, in not only Guyana, but also in the wider Caribbean.
It is about how learning can be made more accessible, how we embrace the opportunities offered by technology and how we empower people with the skills to participate meaningfully in an increasingly connected world.
The EDPAL Plus Learning App was described as the next generation of Guyana’s educational audio and video platform. It brings lessons, courses, audio books, stories, live TV and radio, all in one place for no cost, and for all devices (android and ISO).
It is clearer, faster and easier to navigate, with AI that can learn from users’ listening and viewing habits. It uses these to recommend content that matches interests to support your learning journey.
The same applies to the Guyana Learning Channel, with seven channels in the palm of your hands.
Delivering the feature address, Chief Planning Officer, and Parliamentary Secretary Mischka White-Griffith said that with the implementation of EDPAL Plus, learning being made available all day, every day, with the swipe of a screen.
Parents, she noted, now have a platform that they can trust on their children’s devices with content that is directly linked to what the child learns at school.
The app allows children to move ahead in their subjects or receive assistance or support if they need that.
She related that when we discuss digital policy, we are talking about creating a Guyana that is ready for the 21st century.
“Education is not just what happens in the classroom; it’s what happens with every opportunity that we give to the child in nursery, to that person who dropped out of school and wants to get back into the education sector, and these platforms create those opportunities. So, I’m asking you students, educators, story writers, everyone here, to join the Ministry of Education on this journey as we seek to develop our human capital, so that the future we will live, that they will build out for us, is a Guyana that’s beyond our dreams,” she expressed.
Head of the DEU, Phillip Williams, in his overview of the app stated that on September 25, 2023, the first version of EDPAL was launched. Today, the platform takes EDPAL to the next step, that is from EDPAL to EDPAL Plus.
“We’ve listened to the feedback that we’ve had when we launched EDPAL, the first version. We learned from our experience. We respond to advances in technology, and we’ve improved.
“Here’s what the plus is about. The plus in EDPAL represents the commitment to keep asking, how do we make learning more accessible, more useful, more responsive to the needs of the people we serve? We have worked through radio. We have worked through television. And now we’re strengthening our position in the digital space. EDPAL is a cornerstone of the Ministry of Education’s digital transformation in Guyana. That’s how important it is,” Williams remarked.
