“We know in many cases children are doomed to fail because their teachers didn’t do what they were suppose to do,” said Chief Education Officer, Olato Sam, as he engaged an intense deliberation with teachers of South Georgetown recently.

He was at the time addressing the Non-Repetition and Automatic Promotion Programme, which was introduced some years ago by the education sector and has since been “hijacked and is now being called ‘the No Child Left Behind Policy’.

According to the Chief Education Officer, the programme was designed as part of the Ministry’s intent to devise polices that look at the entire system and what is best for children within it. However, he admitted that there have since been some flaws detected with the programme, which was designed to ensure that students were not forced to repeat a class even if they did not pass all of the prescribed subjects.

Some teachers, according to Sam, are not entirely innocent in the process, as reports from parents have suggested that they (teachers) have not been fully playing their roles to enable students to pass.
“We have had parents coming in and telling us that my child say the teacher was there for six weeks out of the term but come and show up with an exam after 10 weeks and ‘I fail because they ain’t teach me’.”
Teachers have however been lashing out at the Ministry of Education for introducing the Automatic Promotion initiative, claiming that the programme facilitates students’ unwillingness to work but yet they have their eyes set on being promoted to another Grade. In fact, according to Sir Kerwin Mars of the North Georgetown Secondary School, some students are so dependent on the “No child left behind programme that they say you (teacher) can’t beat them, you can’t fail them and they will go over to the next class anyway.”

But according to Sam, the Ministry did not take into consideration those students who were unwilling to genuinely learn even as he speculated that “I think we have all recognised that in introducing this policy initiative, we could have done a better job of ensuring that more of our teachers understood the reason why we go down this path…”
This move, he said, was intended to arrest the problem whereby at least 70 per cent of those students who were forced to repeat in Grade Seven, were not in the school system by Grade 10.  Additionally, if a child who had repeated twice, the percentage drop-out rate skyrocketed to about 90.  “They were absent from school by Grade 10 and when we evaluated why that might be so, what we saw happening was that we were just dropping those children back into the same Grade to do it over and we never bothered to find out why they were failing. We had never bothered to put any system in place to correct the deficiencies that they had.”

Students who failed repeatedly, according to Sam, were often challenged by the effects of a psychological burden, which often transcends into them becoming disruptive during classes. Most of the failing students over the years have been males, Sam said.  “What was happening before this programme could not have been working because, if repetition was a deterrent to failure, so many of our children would not be failing…If they were genuinely afraid to fail, fewer children would have been failing each year.”

With the introduction of the Automatic Promotion Policy, Sam said, teachers were required to consult with parents by the second term of a school year when they realised that students are heading down a path of failure. In addition, it advocates for the introduction of a remediation programme, which students are mandated to attend to address their respective areas of failure. The latter move, according to Sam, should have been accompanied by a roster, whereby teachers are able to keep track of those students who attended remediation sessions.  “We asked teachers to let us know who those children were, who did the remediation and those who didn’t, so we would know who were in danger, so that by June when we re-evaluate the programme, we would see who came to remediation, and maybe the remedy would not be intended for everybody; not across the board.”

Prior to the automatic promotion initiative, Sam pointed out that some students, despite passing a number of subject areas and failing a few, were forced to repeat an entire Grade, even the subjects they had passed. “We required that children remained in that Grade for another year.” But according to the Education CEO, “that is antithetical to everything we know in education. They are not given the benefit of the work they did well in,” Sam added.

Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/03/16/education-sector%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98automatic-promotion%E2%80%99-programme-justified/

To say that we need to educate our ‘people’ to progress in this 21st century has now become quite clichéd. It is not that we have not explored the exhortation: we have referred earlier this week to the efforts of the Ministry of Education to better deliver the goals of improved literacy and numeracy to our students. The government has also emphasised IT4D – Information Technology for Development and has introduced laptops and Educational TV. Witness the efforts to produce better results at CSEC Maths.

But we have created a vicious cycle. Many students see education as irrelevant and drop out of schools or set low personal goals. Students’ poor performances in turn reinforce educators’ narrow focus on the fundamentals of core subjects – see above – making school feel even more irrelevant to students. Breaking this cycle is critical to our ability to “educate our way to a better economy.”

And this is the goal of our educational system, isn’t it?  But what does a “better economy” actually look like? The US, where so many of us want to emigrate, is ironically asking this same question. Much of what follows in this and the following Editorial is taken from one American proposal. A better economy must be more closely attuned to the demands and rhythms of twenty-first century markets. Today’s markets rapidly follow innovations, while staid institutions and static business models quickly become obsolete. Technology disrupts one thing after another.
To succeed in this new, dynamic environment, a workforce must be comprised of individuals who have both the academic foundation and the creative mindset necessary to spark innovations. These employees must be able to recognize opportunities amid obstacles, set and achieve goals, and refine the skills necessary to solve real-world problems. In a word, we must create entrepreneurs.

Our schools are still captive to an industrial-era approach to education, moving students through an assembly line of arbitrary grade levels without pausing to consider what skills the market demands of the young Guyanese they produce. Yes, Guyana has undertaken a wide array of education reforms, but they are largely focused on the question of how schools should be structured and managed, giving teachers incentives or fine tuning exams and assessments. And we keep on producing non-functional graduates or dropouts.
Most of our dropouts would have stayed in school if they felt it was applicable to real life. Many of them would love to start their own business. One can only imagine what would happen if we start entrepreneurship education programs early enough in schools so students see the entrepreneurial path as viable. Structural reforms will not make school relevant or rekindle the entrepreneurial spirit. How and what we teach must be better aligned with how students learn and what is necessary for their future success.

Entrepreneurship education can set in motion a virtuous cycle that surmounts these twin challenges and moves us closer to the entrepreneurial economy we envision. Entrepreneurship education reframes core academic lessons in a way that demonstrates their relevance to future earning potential and happiness. Pricing a product or service that will earn students some spending money engages them in learning Maths in a way that is highly relevant to their lives—especially for those from poorer socio-economic backgrounds.

Building a business plan for an original idea asks students to demonstrate skills that are rarely emphasized in our education system. Creative thinking, market research, opportunity recognition, strategic planning, goal setting, and all types of communication are key to building a business plan and presenting it to potential investors.
Studies have found that students’ educational expectations were one of the strongest predictors of academic achievement and that adolescents’ aspirations predict their educational attainment. Simply put, students stay in school and are more successful if they believe that what they are being taught is relevant to their lives and can bring success. Entrepreneurship education succeeds in bridging the challenges we face by showing students how core subjects relate to a brighter future, while at the same time instilling the skills vital for the workforce of today.

Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/03/16/teaching-entrepreneurship/

Source: https://www.stabroeknews.com/2012/business/03/09/pirated-texts-being-distributed-in-schools-teacher-says/

THE seventh Inter-American Meeting of Ministers of Education was hosted in Suriname recently, through the Organisation of American States (OAS), to devise ways in which to transform the role of teachers to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. 

The objective was to analyse the current status of the teaching profession in the various regions and propose policies and strategies that strengthen the functions of professional educators.
The two-day gathering saw government representatives, including Guyana’s Education Minister Priya Manickchand, involved in nine plenary sessions, seeking to determine what kind of teaching today’s student requires and the part governments can play in ensuring quality learning for all.

Twenty-two delegations from member states, among them nine ministers, started discussions on March 1, with the adoption of the ‘Declaration of Paramaribo: Transforming the role of teachers to meet the challenges of the XXI Century.’
Ms. Manickchand, in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, said the initiative was one of the best ways forward and the education sector will be successful with this international collaboration.
She said she is pleased with the outcome and that Guyana stands to benefit significantly from the recent long term intervention which seeks to modernise the education system worldwide.
Minister Manickchand said Guyana has agreed to be a part of this new dialogue and will work towards improving the sector locally, as well.

She said she and other government officials from the various countries, represented at the March 1 and 2 talks in Paramaribo, agreed that ensuring quality education is one of the pillars of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

FIRST SESSION
The first session focused on ‘State of the Art of Teacher Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean’, as proposed by a university in Chile and supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Regional Education Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The delegations, comprising ministers and other education officials, were in agreement that the sharing of experiences is key to addressing the many challenges that teaching currently faces.
Coming out of these discussions, a report is to be submitted to UNESCO in May, targeting the researches that were carried out in some of the countries, with the goal of analysing, among other things, the situation of teachers in the hemisphere, their education, professional development, work conditions and professional career.
A release from the OAS quoted Surinamese Vice-President Robert Ameerali as stating that education is inseparable from the development of human capital.
He said the education system is a measurement of a country’s development and governments must be fully committed to it.

“When students fail, the teacher has failed. When the teacher fails, the system has failed; when the system fails, we, as politicians, have failed,” Ameerali said.

Source: https://guyanachronicle.com/2012/03/06/meeting-in-suriname

Having pumped just about $24 million, apart from teachers’ salaries, into the education sector on an annual basis, the government, through the Priya Manickchand-headed Ministry of Education, is determined to reap value for money at this year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Examination.  A review of current capital type investment has suggested that “we are not seeing the corresponding rise in grades in the two particular subject areas of Maths and English,” according to the Minister. .  “This is one of the biggest Ministries in terms of the resources that are plugged into the Ministry but the result has not been proportionate to the investments made…the problem with that is very simple, if our children can’t matriculate with Maths and English then it means they are going to be a lot of doors that are closed to them; in the job area and the further education area and we need to make sure that that changes.”

It was against this background that she saw it necessary to introduce an ambitious programme during the latter part of last year, aiming for drastic improvements come results time.
Manickchand has pointed out that while in the area of English there have been indications of acceptable results, the subject area of Maths, over the past 10 years, reflects a mere 10 per cent increase in the pass rate from about 20 per cent to currently 30 per cent.
“This is where we are at right now and this remains unacceptable in any language. The fact remains that we are seeing some countries having 31 and 38 per cent, but all under 40 per cent, and this is no comfort to me because at the end of the day, what it means is that we have 70 per cent of our children not having some of the doors we have here opened to them.”  The Minister as a result questioned “what is the point of developing Guyana or making our country move from a low income, heavily in-debt, poor country, to a middle income developing country if the new opportunities arising in this country are going to be out of the reach of our next generation?”

According to the Minister, the rationale behind striving to improve the rate of performance in the subject areas is geared at ensuring that “our children can go on to universities, whether local or foreign, and be able to access certain jobs. If they don’t have Maths and English, then in a sense we are failing them and certainly we are failing our dear country…” The Minister alluded to the National Pledge, pointing to the fact that the whole theme of the pledge is that we will do what is good for Guyana. “That is not to say that we think teachers have not been doing what is good, but somehow or the other the system has not been able to get those grades up and this for me is not only a matter of concern but almost a challenge or a red flag in front of a bull…We have the potential to make changes and we can combine the potential we have to see actual results for Maths and English if we could improve the grades of at least 1,500 of our children.”

In fact, the Minister is optimistic that the subject area could reflect, at the minimum, a 20 percent improvement when the CSEC results are unveiled later this year.
Her assurance has been reflected by an $85.7M Government approved contract for the procurement of items to boost students’ learning.

These included CXC General Maths Book I and II, the Self-Study Guide for CXC, the collection of revision DVDs, the combined pass papers from 2008 to 2011, Model Solutions to difficult answers, Combined Solution for everything in addition to a Geometry set, graph paper and a scientific calculator, which have been distributed to the participating schools.

Each student slated to be a part of a pilot project introduced by the Ministry of Education has been provided with the procured materials and teachers have been provided with individual syllabuses and a collection of the package to allow them to effectively work with each student.

Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/03/05/2012-csec-results-should-reflect-value-for-money-%E2%80%93-education-minister/

GUYANA is among several countries of the Americas that will be represented at a meeting of the Ministers of Education of the Americas, being coordinated by the Organisation of American States (OAS) and slated to be held tomorrow and Friday in Paramaribo, Suriname. 

A delegation headed by Education Minister, Priya Manickchand is expected to represent Guyana, but it is not known what issues the Guyana team hopes to raise at that meeting because, yesterday, efforts to secure an interview with the delegation failed.

Among the important aspects of the meeting are: the review of works undertaken by the Inter-American Committee on Education (CIE) since 2009; laying the foundations for the CIE Work Plan for the period 2012-2014; and electing new CIE authorities.

The general focus is expected to be on the teachers that today’s students need; on schools as learning communities; and on the role of the government in promoting teachers’ quality through public policy. Additionally, the ministers are expected to analyze the main obstacles to effective teaching, which may be addressed through public policy; and to examine successful experiences through which educational systems have strengthened teaching practice.
The meeting will also be addressing the current status of the teaching profession in the region, and proposing policies and strategies that strengthen the role of professional educators.

In a press release issued by the OAS, it was pointed out that this Seventh Meeting of the Ministers of Education will be inaugurated on Thursday, March 1st by Surinamese head of state, President Desi Bouterse; OAS Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza; and Suriname’s Education and Community Development Minister, Raymond Sapoen.
The adoption of the “Declaration of Paramaribo: Transforming the role of teachers to meet the challenges of the XXI century”, and the final text of what had been agreed upon during the meeting are among the final activities of the two-day session. OAS Assistant Secretary General, Albert Ramdin is also expected to attend on the final day, the release stated.

Source: https://guyanachronicle.com/2012/02/29/minister-manickchand-for-oas-meeting-in-suriname

– As Ministry analyses Mock CSEC Exam results

Within a matter of months the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate Examination (CSEC) is scheduled to be undertaken and drastic improvements are anticipated given the visionary move by Education Minister, Ms. Priya Manickchand, to direct more teaching efforts into the areas of Maths and English.

But while the task was entrusted into the hands of teachers to better their teaching capabilities, having been equipped with the necessary tools, Minister Manickchand has asserted that the onus is not only on teachers to help realize improvements at the upcoming examination. “What do we expect of our students? We expect you at this time to be disciplined; we expect you to understand that you should to be putting all of your attention and focus into your school work…particularly in the subject areas of Maths and English but do not neglect the other subjects.”
“It has to be a focused thing…if you’re accustomed to watching television shows up to about two hours in the night you have to decide that you’re going to cut that out. Your parents can’t do it for you, the government can’t do it for you and certainly the teachers can’t do it for you…You have to make this choice.”

The Minister pointed out that the ability to choose a profession be it a doctor, lawyer, accountant, teacher, policeman or even a home maker, can only be had if students are able to pass their subjects.
“Without an education your life is going to be hard, people are going to feel they can do you what they want, treat you how they want, you’ll have no choices and you will have to stay where you are because you did not get the grades you were looking for…So you have to decide what kind of life you are looking for,” the Minister warned.

According to the Minister, Students must recognize their role even as she pointed to the fact that parents have been playing their part as well by making sacrifices in some instances just to put food on the table.

According to Chief Education Officer, Mr. Olato Sam, although the pilot programme to improve Maths and English at CSEC started with just about 30 schools, a few others have since requested to join, bringing the total to 36.  The introduction of the ambitious programme, he noted, has channeled heightened awareness which has generated greater general interest on the part of students, teachers and parents.  He related that the Ministry has been conducting a number of workshops and efforts were recently made to conduct an entire CSEC mock examination to ascertain the efficacy of the programme.

According to Sam the result of that examination is still being analyzed but “things are going according to plan…we are going to continue to monitor things but we expect to get the desired results.”
The improvement programme is being dubbed a four-prong partnership involving teachers, students, parents and the government. Earlier this year, Government approved an $85.7 M contract for the procurement of items to boost students’ learning. These included CXC General Maths Book I and II, the Self-Study Guide for CXC, the collection of revision DVDs, the combined pass papers from 2008 to 2011, Model Solutions to difficult answers, Combined Solution for everything in addition to a geometry set, graph paper and a scientific calculator which have been distributed to the participating schools.

Each student has been provided with the procured materials and teachers have been provided with individual syllabuses and a collection of the package to allow them to effectively work with each student.
Minister Manickchand, upon assuming office last year, sought to amplify the need for urgent improvement in the subject areas of English and Mathematics countrywide. The latter mentioned subject area saw a significant decline reflective in a below 35 per cent pass rate last year, thus suggesting that there is a need for even more attention, according to the Minister. She speculated that the existing low mathematics grades may very well be linked to the fact that the confidence level of the country as a whole may be equally low and observed that this dilemma is not unique to Guyana as it is very evident the Region over.

“Some of us feel almost beaten because we do so poorly in the area (Maths) and some of us who stop to recognize that it is not Guyana alone, use it as an excuse that, ‘Oh! Is not we alone! Is everybody doing badly and so it is alright for us to do badly’…I am saying we don’t have to do badly.”

However, despite the evident poor performance rate, Manickchand said that the Ministry has recognized that there is capacity within the system to help foster improved performance thus the introduction of the strategic programme.

Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/02/25/students%E2%80%99-role-to-help-realize-improvement-at-csec-being-amplified/
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New Minister of Education Priya Manickchand has said that she has heard enough grumbling about the ‘No child left behind’ policy to persuade her that there should be a countrywide consultation about the policy and whether it should remain in the school system.

“I am not going… to answer you now to say whether or not we are going to keep it in place; what I can say is that we will be consulting widely across the country about how people feel about it and whether it should be something that stays in place,” the minister told the Sunday Stabroekin a recent interview.

In the past the policy has come under strong criticism from many quarters, with some labelling it “harmful and useless,” but according to Minister Manickchand from what she has been told, her predecessor, Minister Shaik Baksh, had the full support of his technical staff in the implementation of the programme. “All the bigwigs in           education seemed to have supported it,” the minister told the SundayStabroek.

In late 2010 Cleveland Thomas, the headmaster of Wismar/Christianburg Secondary School was taken to task when he refused to promote children who had not passed their exams, in defiance of the ‘No child left behind’ policy. Many parents, students and teachers had rallied behind him.

He subsequently said that given the abundance of resource material in the schools, and with the adherence to the guidelines, a large percentage of students should be moving through the system. Stabroek News had reported him also as telling the media that the needs of every child in the class had to be assessed and certain remediation “effected to bring them up to a certain level.” This, he had emphasized, was the responsibility of the school.

‘Harmful and useless’

On the other hand Minister Manickchand said that even before she became the education minister persons had complained to her about the policy, and since her appointment to head the country’s education system in every place she has gone one or more persons without fail asked her about the programme.

“[They] claimed that it was harmful and useless and so on, and while I have heard and read the policy that was put in place, and there is some merit about why it was put in place, we cannot fail to hear what the recipients of this policy are saying, [those] being teachers, students and parents,” the minister said.

But Manickchand went on to say she was not sure that a proper evaluation was done to ascertain whether the policy had or had not produced results.

“But I know we can’t fail to hear what people are saying…” the minister conceded.

“I have heard my staff, senior policy-making staff who say it is working and that it is necessary, and I am hearing from others that say it is not, and I never like to make decisions without hearing from all stakeholders, so we would be doing that shortly.”

‘Unacceptable’

Meanwhile, the minister has sounded a warning that she is not going to accept schools not being in a proper condition to accommodate students at the beginning of a school term.

In the past every time a new school term begins there have been complaints from parents around the country about the readiness of the school and in some cases, for example, Golden Grove School last term, parents and students protest and close the doors of the school concerned.

“We should not be weeding school yards on the morning of school opening,” the minister said.

“If you have a school in a region that is not capable of opening or it doesn’t have furniture it means that a lot of people in that regional system fell down on what they were supposed to do, and that is not something I am prepared to tolerate,” the minister told Sunday Stabroek.

She said it is “unacceptable” that such problems exist in the regions and as such people “will have to do what they are expected to do or maybe we could find a place that they are better suited for.”

The minister said that the ministry has furniture, but if the region does report the need then the furniture cannot be sent to the school.

“The head teacher is the minister for that school, every school has a minister and every school has a CEO… and they have to be proactive too. Some of the schools I visited the head teacher never went to find out if the school is ready,” Manickchand said.

She said the regional education officers should visit the schools in their regions or have a system in place where they are aware of what is happening at each school.

And according to the minister, the government is providing exercise books for each student and these must be in the hands of the students and not sitting in some regional department or some head teacher’s office.

There is also the issue of schools using their own books and not the textbooks handed out by the ministry, she continued, as result placing a tremendous burden on parents.

“These are some things I want to streamline, but like I said I know where we came from and I know that I have met it at a point where it is the most streamlined, but there is still more work that we have to do.”

The minister said that she wants to ensure that the things the government invests in are beneficial to the students, and as such the ministry would be publishing things such as how many exercise and textbooks a student is entitled to, and if the child did not receive the books then a number would be listed for them to call.

Dropout rates

Meantime, in an effort to address the dropout rates of students the minister said she has spoken to the welfare department of her ministry and they have to play a larger role and have to assist in the identification of students who start having problems very early. Students who are absent for a week or a few days, should be visited at home by the officers in effort to find out why they are not attending classes. If they have stayed away because they are not academically inclined then  their talent or interest should be identified.

The minister noted that other technically based programmes have been created to assist these students in the schools and an examination of that programme is currently under way to ensure it is working, and if it is not what is needed to make it work. The aim is to have a technical centre in each region so that students who are not academically inclined would have an option.

“We have to make sure that we challenge and channel those children into the right area and make sure that those areas are properly staffed, they have equipment, that they have the necessary challenge and it is not just something we say we are doing but we are not seeing the necessary results.”

The minister also told the newspaper that she is working on a “huge project” in the ministry trying to attain universal secondary education.  She said it is going to be an expensive undertaking but it is not something they can “put off.”

Source: https://www.stabroeknews.com/2012/news/stories/01/14/%E2%80%98no-child-left-behind%E2%80%99-policy-to-be-reviewed-manickchand/

EDUCATION Minister Priya Manickchand, following a visit to  three Region 3 schools yesterday, said school managers and head teachers must be cognizant of the buildings’ readiness prior to their opening after an end of term, and must report unpreparedness to the Regional Education Departments and Central Ministry, so that the necessaryactions can be taken, including notifying parents/students of delayed opening or interventions to ensure their surroundings are suitable for the delivery of education. 

Along with a team of ministry and regional officials, the minister visited the Nismes Primary School, West Bank Demerara, and the Uitvlugt Primary and Leonora Secondary schools, West Coast Demerara. Articles of these schools’ unpreparedness at the start of the school term were highlighted in two dailies.   
Minister Manickchand emphasised that the state of the schools should not have attracted her attention, for there are systems in place to address the issues.
With regard to Nismes Primary, Minister Manickchand stated that she was a bit perturbed , contrary to what she was told, the pond in the school’s compound has not been filled. She added that it is clear that the school was not visited prior to its re-opening. 
“This is unacceptable… we have decided that persons who are put in positions of management and supervision have to honour the terms of their employment, and do these things before school reopens,” Minister Manickchand emphasised.

She reiterated that while the parents’ concerns are now being resolved, they should have been addressed a week prior to the start of the school term.
Classes will now recommence from Monday at the Uitvlugt Primary, and parents are urged to send their children out. Notably, efforts will be in place to ensure that any class time lost during the first week of school will be recovered during the coming months.   
Minister Manickchand explained that the anticipation is that such an incident would not have to be addressed again, since measures will be put in place to make sure that when project instructions are issued, that they are executed and monitored to ensure completion.

Contractors
While at the $293.5M Leonora Secondary that was opened in November, Minister Manickchand stated that the work on the school will be completed by this weekend and explained that it was incomplete because the contractor was awaiting the arrival of eight specially ordered sinks from overseas for the science labs. With the arrival and installation of these, the remaining work will be complete.

Minister Manickchand noted that while the work was incomplete, school has been in session, and this is evident with attendance by both teachers and students. Additionally, since school reopened, the school has had a Parent Teachers’ Association meeting, engaging parents of Fifth Form students who will be sitting the CSEC exams this year.
With regard to the timely completion of works done on education institutions, Minister Manickchand disclosed that in December, the ministry’s officials met with the contractors, hired through the tender process, who are currently working on schools and dorms around the country.
She stressed that at that meeting, it was made clear that they abide by the contractual terms, especially as it relates to the completion and delivery of quality work; and if they fail to honour their agreement, then the Ministry will not hesitate to implement the contractual terms to penalise them.

Source: http://guyanachronicle.com/2012/01/07/schools-must-be-visited-prior-to-re-opening-education-minister