In keeping with the Persons Living with Disability Act, the Ministry of Education has been feverishly working to ensure that children with special education needs are fully catered for within the public school system.

Speaking in the National Assembly during the recent budget debates, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand made it clear that “we are going to be looking at making sure that our buildings are friendlier, so that we can cater for children with disabilities so that it does not affect their ability to learn.”

In this quest to improve the delivery of special education needs, the Minister said that her Ministry is committed to ensuring that education buildings are designed with those with special needs in mind. This will therefore see buildings being constructed with ramps and even suitable washroom facilities.

“We are committed and we are making sure that every building we build complies with the Person Living with Disability Act…” a passionate Manickchand told the House.
And efforts to improve the delivery of education among those with special education needs have already started since according to the Minister, moves have already been made to relocate the Blind Unit which was once housed at the St. Rose’s Secondary School.  Those students, according to her, have been placed in another friendlier environment since September 2, 2013.

However, the Minister asserted that her Ministry is not by any means satisfied with what has been done with those with special needs education.
“We are not happy with that and we are recognising that we are not doing what we are suppose to do; we are not preparing our children with special education needs as best as we can and making them capable of meeting their maximum potential…we would be the first to tell you that we are not happy with the way the education sector has been catering for students with special education needs,” said Manickchand.

It was for this very reason, she said, that the Ministry had spearheaded a countrywide stakeholders’ consultation, which has helped to inform the work of the Ministry, over the next five years, in this regard.
“People have told us what they want; they want us to make sure we look at how we are preparing our teachers, so one of the things that is going to be done as a matter of priority over the next five years, is to make sure that all of the teachers coming out of CPCE are prepared for integrating special education needs children into the classroom,” assured Manickchand.

It was only earlier this year that the Minister intimated plans to give closer attention to teachers tasked with attending to special needs education children, whereby they are treated on par with other teachers. However, she disclosed that such a move will take some work on the part of the Ministry to ensure that this is realised.
Moreover, moves to ensure equality among teachers will see the Ministry seeking to revise regulations governing the operation of Special Needs teachers.

Currently, Special Needs education teachers are not eligible for promotion, a state of affairs that prompted Minister Manickchand to emphasise that “our teachers who have been teaching (Special Needs) have been extremely kind…but at the end of the day, people want promotion and so on. The system we have now does not allow a teacher teaching in a Special Needs School to be promoted and we are fixing that shortly,” declared the Minister.
She pointed out that the Ministry is intent on making sure that the teaching of special needs is seen as beneficial to teachers. As such, Manickchand disclosed that “…we are looking at what incentives are offered to teachers to deliver this very difficult programme.”

But since there are certainly not enough trained teachers to cater to this crucial area, the Minister said that efforts are being made to have greater focus on specifically training teachers in this regard.

Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2014/04/21/improving-special-education-high-on-education-ministry-agenda/

Designed to offer an interactive forum for stakeholders of education, the Ministry of Education on Thursday officially launched an internet Chat Room. The Chat Room, which could be found on the Ministry’s website, www.education.gov.gy, will be accessible every Thursday from 19:30 hoursto 21:00 hours when Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand and/or senior officers will be available to answer various questions pertaining to the delivery of education.

The start of the live Chat Room on Thursday saw the ‘revised nursery entry age’ being the topic of discussion with Minister Manickchand and a number of senior officers engaged in the very interactive forum.
Many stakeholders who signed in to participate Thursday night commended the move by the Ministry.
This publication understands that although the once weekly Chat Room will have a particular theme to guide the discussion, there will also be allowance for other matters of interest to be discussed.

The introduction of the Chat Room was premised on the recognition that there were a number of concerns within the education system, some of which were not gaining the attention of the relevant officials within Central Ministry in a timely manner. With the introduction of this avenue it is expected that information will reach senior officials at a much faster rate than was obtained in the past.
It is therefore expected that such interactions will lend to the education sector operating even more efficiently. “We believe we can engage each other on the important issues of the sector in a civilised,” said the Ministry in a statement of the Chat Room.

The Ministry, in a statement, has said that “as servants of our children, their parents and our dear country, we believe that it is absolutely important to have our programmes and policies and their implementation informed by the views of your views.” Against this backdrop, the Ministry cited the importance of hearing from stakeholders, parents in particular, about the   issues affecting the education of their children.

In addition to face to face meetings in communities, the Ministry has established a hotline which persons can call to report urgent matters. Added to this the ministry has created a Facebook page which currently has in excess of 10,000 followers and serves as yet another means of reaching out to stakeholders.

Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2014/04/13/education-ministry-introduces-forum-to-interact-with-stakeholders/

– as $32.3B approved

Following copious scrutinising questions from the Parliamentary Opposition, the $32.3 billion allocated to the Ministry of Education was on Wednesday approved by the National Assembly, effectively dodging the threat of being slashed from the 2014 National Budget.

The passage of the Ministry’s allocation is expected to clear the way for a number of projects to be implemented, including the newest feature of a $10,000 grant to parents to cater to the schooling needs of each of the their children attending public schools.  This will of course be in addition to the school uniform voucher and the other support that have been afforded by Government in the past.

In fact, the Minister has asserted that with the passage of the allocation “we can move assiduously on some of the key areas such as, the improvement of infrastructure, curriculum development, revising and establishing new learning materials, teacher training, special education, information and communication technologies, among others earmarked in our Strategic Plan 2014-2018.”
She is moreover convinced that the sector, and by extension the country, is poised for further ‘positive impact’ which will lend to further growth.

The Minister during her contribution to the Budget debate on Monday made a point of emphasizing that although plausible improvements have been realised in the Education Sector, particularly in terms of examination results, “we are not happy with 34 per cent pass in English, we want to see 100 per cent of our children that we enroll and sign up for exams passing.  We will get there because we can; we can plan for it, we can strategise for it and we will fund it,” said the Minister as she appealed for good sense to prevail among the Opposition to facilitate the approval of her Ministry’s allocation.
“It is we that can be trusted to take the nation’s children forward, we have shown how we can do that,” added a passionate Manickchand.

According to her, the Education Ministry has not been silent about the results obtained in Mathematics and English at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination but has openly spoken of its concerns relating to these results. “We tell the nation how unhappy we are with some of these grades…” said Manickchand as she noted that the results have not all been daunting.  “We know last year that out of eight awards granted by the Caribbean Examination Council, our Guyanese children were given five…” recalled Manickchand.

She went on to remind the House of the performance of Yogeeta Persaud of the Anna Regina Multilateral School, who was bestowed with the award for Best Overall Student; and the fact that Cecil Cox and Sasha Woodruff, both of Queen’s College, won awards for the best performances in the Sciences and Business Education, respectively.
Rafena Mustapha of the Saraswati Vidya Niketan Secondary School; was also the proud recipient of an award for her performance in the Humanities.

And of course an award went to Zimeena Rasheed, also of the Anna Regina School, who made Regional history when she undertook 20 subjects at one sitting, and came out being the best performer in Vocational Education.
Manickchand in bragging-rights mode, amplified that “the only things we didn’t get were the short story writing (award), the Best Performer in Visual Arts 2-Dimensional and the best performer Visual Arts 3-Dimensional and we are going for them…We are going to get all eight of these awards before the next five years are over,” added the confident Education Minister.

She further went on to amplify to the House that “from 2006 to 2013, except for 2010, Guyana has brought home, through our children because of the investment we have been making in them, the best overall performer for the Region.”

Source: 

… as Minister tells of Guyana Learning Channel being the envy of other Caribbean states

THE Guyana Learning Channel continues to be the envy of other countries in the Caribbean, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand said in the National Assembly Wednesday night.

She said the Learning Channel was, to date, the only one of its kind in the Caribbean, and some CARICOM members states had even approached the Government of Guyana, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education, to seek advice on how they can replicate this type programme in their own territories.
She made the comments while responding to one of several questions from Opposition Member of Parliament and Shadow Education Minister, Amna Ally, as well as other Opposition Parliamentarians. This was shortly before the estimates for current and capital expenditures of $32.3B for the Ministry of Education was passed unopposed.
Minister Manickchand had been asked about the cost of the channel which is a satellite communication network that facilitates the production and nationwide broadcast of educational programmes.

The network reaches all communities in Guyana and the service is provided by Television Guyana (TVG) which is said to be the only company in Guyana that has the capability of uploading programme information to satellites and then downloading the programme to receivers countrywide.
The contract caters for National Center for Educational Resource Development (NCERD) to pay to TVG the equivalent of US$15,000 monthly, plus VAT.
Minister Manickchand disclosed that construction of three new secondary schools will begin this year, under the Secondary Education Improvement Project.

These are the Good Hope Secondary that will provide for 800 students from the Good Hope/ Lusignan area, the Yarrowkabra Secondary that will accommodate 800 students from the Upper East Bank Demerara area, and the Parfaite Harmonie Secondary which will provide secondary education to one thousand children in Region 3 .
The sum of $55M, Minister Manickchand said, has been allocated for construction work to commence on these three schools and they are expected to be completed by mid-2016.
Among other allocations approved is one for $488M for the purchase of exercise books and text books for both primary and secondary school children.
Minister Manickchand said that the significant allocation is to be used to provide exercise books for every child in the country, and purchase and procure text books for both primary and secondary school children.
She said, “What we want to do is to make sure by this provision this year is that every single primary school child has basic text books in Maths, English, Social Studies, Sciences and a Reader, and that every single secondary school child has the relevant Maths, English and Science text, and some foreign languages text books.”
She disclosed also that under Education Subventions and Grants, the sum of $3,490,447 has been allocated to cater for the more than 188,000 students who will each receive $10,000 as a cash grant for the very first time in the history of Guyana.

Manickchand said the modus operandi for distribution of the grant is yet to be finalised, but the aim will be to distribute it smoothly, with transparency and accountability.
The sum of $205M has been allocated to the NCERD for purchasing of mini science kits which can be substitutes for a complete science lab; for management training of Heads and Deputy Heads of schools to enable them to better manage their schools; for scripts for the learning Channel which have a local bias; and for training in Spanish and Portuguese, among other elements of its mandate.
The budget also provides, under the National Education Policy, the sum of $30M which will be used to purchase a number of vehicles, including two 29-seater buses which will be used to transport children living on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway to and from nursery, primary and secondary schools at the Kuru Kuru educational complex.

Minister Manickchand disclosed that a few years ago the International Labour Organization (ILO) funded a partnership between the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Education to provide transportation and meals for children living along the highway, so that they were more likely to attend school.
She said that programme was massively successful but the funding had come to an end.
Government will however be taking up the slack by purchasing the buses to continue to take these children to school.
Government, she said, will also continue to provide meals for them.
The children of the David Rose Centre for the Handicapped who have special education needs, and who generally have difficulties with using the public transportation system, will also be provided with a bus by the Ministry of Education for transportation to and from school.
The sum of $30M had also been allocated to train teachers on how to use Readers developed by the Ministry of Education for primary and secondary school children.

Minister Manickchand explained that the prohibitive cost of text books has prevented government from giving a text book to a child, thus possibly limiting the learning that the child can have.
As a result the Ministry had embarked on writing some of its own Readers, including an entire Nursery series called Roraima Readers, and a series called the Atlantic Readers for children from Grades 1 to 6.
The Readers, which are being tested now, have flash cards, wall charts and other visual learning aids which are aligned with not only the curriculum, but with international literacy standards and guidelines.
The sum of $30M will be used for training of teachers and stakeholders about how they can use the Readers effectively .

Source: (By Clifford Stanley) https://guyanachronicle.com/2014/04/11/32-3b-education-ministry-allocation-approved-unanimously

Estimates totalling $13.9 billion meant for the Ministry of Education were approved on Wednesday afternoon when the National Assembly met to consider the amounts.

The process was not without a few verbal skirmishes, mainly between the two leading ladies in this area, Education Minister Priya Manickchand and APNU Shadow Education Minister Amna Ally. Contributions were also made by AFC MPs Valerie Garrido-Lowe and Cathy Hughes and MP Carl Greenidge, APNU’s point person on all things finance.

Purchasing of vehicles

Under the estimates for the ministry’s main office, Manickchand explained that $9 million is provided to purchase a vehicle for the minister as the one currently being used has already been overhauled twice. Under the ministry’s National Education Policy Programme, $18.5 million will go towards the procurement of four vehicles to enhance the capacity of ministry’s employees, including the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Administration. Funds will also be used under this programme to purchase two buses.

The money will also provide a bus for the David Rose School for the Handicapped to facilitate the transportation of its students. According to the minister, the school’s students require special care, but continue to face difficulties on public transportation.

The purchase of a double-door pickup, the minister continued, is also provided for to assist staff in various departments.

Payment for security services

There were also increases, under several programmes, of amounts intended to pay for security services. This time, it was Greenidge who highlighted that proposed expenditure under “Main Office” is $7.8 million, up from $4.8 million in 2013.

It was also pointed out that amounts for security services under the proposed “Education Delivery” programme amounted to $318 million, up from $295.1 million in 2013. Asked the rationale behind the increase, Manickchand explained that the new minimum wage order issued by the Ministry of Labour last year necessitated an increase in the amounts the ministry once paid for security services.

Printing of texts

Several million dollars have also been allocated to finance the writing of text books to be used in Guyana’s schools. Manickchand said that recent decisions concerning honouring copyright laws have made it more difficult for the ministry to procure the books needed for schools. As such, she explained, the ministry has endeavoured to gather competent and capable minds to write books for school-use. She said some of the books have been completed and have to be tested. In addition, $488.9 million is allocated for “Print and Non-Print Material” under the ministry’s proposed administration programme.

Overpayments

Lawrence, a member of the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) – a body which scrutinises the finances of public institutions – said that the Auditor General has found that from 2006 to 2011 the ministry has made overpayments totaling $34.6 million.

To this Manickchand said that measures are being implemented to ensure such instances do not recur. With regard to taking measures to recoup the sums, she said the ministry is contemplating publishing the names of all those who owe the ministry money. Some of the persons who owe the ministry, she said, are aware of the fact that they received more than they were supposed to, but did not have the decency to give the amounts back. She said the ministry is first trying to exhaust all other measures before it decides to publish names in newspapers.

Manickchand is also not yet sure how she will go about distributing the money which will go to the parents of children in the public school system. When he presented the budget 2014 Finance Minister Ashni Singh announced that “government will provide this year a cash grant to the parents of every child attending a nursery, primary or secondary school in the public education system in the amount of $10,000 per child.” Singh said the provision is expected to benefit188,406 families.

While Minister of Edu-cation Priya Manickchand boasted about the advancements made in the education sector, APNU’s shadow minister Amna Ally criticised spending in the sector, saying the nation’s children are not the real beneficiaries.

The two squared off yesterday during the continuing debates on the administration’s proposed $220 billion budget, which the minister dubbed “holistic and comprehensive” while Ally labelled it a “repair and maintenance schedule” and a “spend and hope budget.”

However, the minister duly plodded on in her presentation with the loud support of her colleagues on the government side. Ally, who is also the opposition Chief Whip, was the only member of the opposition seated.

“With money comes growth, growth means our children are doing better, it means our children are better prepared for the world tomorrow…,” the minister said. According to the minister, there is no other sector better than education to demonstrate “tangibly” the growth under the PPP/C administration. She said the policy of the government is that education is the one thing that will see poverty being alleviated and she added that over the years the budgetary allocations to the sector increased and with this increase there has been better examination results.

But Ally argued that the country is not getting value for its money and that in some cases one cannot tell where the money is going. The “sufferers are the nation’s children,” she lamented, while charging that there is no certainty about the effectiveness of the educations programme. “This is evident having looking at what was supposed to have been done in 2013 and its preceding years. We hope that the government can get serious,” Ally said.

Source: https://www.stabroeknews.com/2014/news/guyana/04/08/manickchand-ally-clash-education-gains/

The People’s Progressive Party, through its General Secretary (GS) Clement Rohee, has said that A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) reneged on an agreement in Parliament with respect to the ban that was issued and subsequently lifted on Minister of Education Pryia Manickchand.

Rohee made this observation after APNU decided to drown out her speech during last Friday’s sitting of the House.
He explained that the commotion was caused because the Minister of Education was “misquoted and misinterpreted”. Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman, had threatened to stop the Minister from speaking.

According to Rohee there was a meeting featuring the Chief Whips from APNU (Amna Ally) and PPP (Gail Teixeira) and Joseph Harmon, in the presence of the Speaker.
“All sides were heard and there was agreement that the Minister would make a statement that she did not refer to Member of Parliament Jaipaul Sharma. The Speaker would then allow her to make her 2014 budget debate contribution.”

Rohee then said that when called upon Friday to speak the “Peoples National Congress [PNC] led APNU began an unexpected banging and shouting to prevent the Minister from “exercising her democratic right to speak and represent 200,000 children who are in our schools today.”
Rohee said that the actions of APNU which effectively stopped the Minister from speaking are “just part of PNC bullying behavior to silence people without rhyme or reason and part of the disrespect for law and order and principles.”

This behaviour is what the PPP has been calling the “tyranny of the one-seat majority which the opposition has in the House” according to Rohee. He said that earlier in the tenth Parliament APNU employed a motion to gag him.
Rohee said that the “ear shattering banging on the tables and the shouting down of the Minister reminded us of the PNC behaviour in the past when the party was in office.
They used any and every means to shut up and silence those who did not share their view.

The PPP is of the view that APNU’s action last Friday “was a manifestation of their true colours, that being unprincipled and untrusting.” He said that after the agreement was reached by the parties concerned on Wednesday and the PPP Minister did her part, the APNU reneged on their agreement.

“The same thing happened in 2012 when the APNU was in agreement with a phased increase in Linden electricity rates only to renege on that during the sitting of the National Assembly.”
He said that APNU’s display was not only to prevent the Minister from speaking but “also could be considered a breach of the trust, which honourable people uphold and should uphold.”
Rohee said his party understands that under a pre-electoral agreement, APNU had promised the Justice for All Party (JFAP) one of the Parliamentary seats were they to win seats in the Parliament.

“It is interesting to note that a PNC member will now be filling that seat which should been given to the JFA party.”
He said that this is another example of the “lack of principle and trust which APNU fails to fulfill”. He added that the Speaker “must exercise control over the National Assembly and protect the Minister of Education from further abuse and denial of her right to speak in the National Assembly.”

Rohee was asked about what was stopping Minister Manickchand from apologizing and moving on with the work of the National Assembly. APNU Member of Parliament Vanessa Kissoon had done a similar heckle during a presentation by Public Works Minister Robeson Benn citing his relative being fingered in rape allegations.
The House asked her to apologize and she did so.

Rohee said that he did not hear Vanessa Kissoon’s comments so he was not capable of making a comparative analysis of the two incidents.

Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2014/04/08/apnu-reneged-on-agreement-in-parliament-over-manickchand-says-ppp/

…insists that she must apologise

The Parliamentary Opposition yesterday retaliated against Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, when she again stood in the National Assembly to add her voice to the ongoing 2014 budget debates.
As the Minister commenced her speech, members of the joint opposition, the Alliance for Change (AFC) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), swiftly vacated their chairs and headed for the nearest exits.

The only opposition member who remained grounded was APNU’s Chief Whip and Shadow Minister of Education, Amna Ally, who was slated to speak immediately after Manickchand.
On Friday Manickchand,  first attempted to make her presentation but was ‘drowned out’ by the Opposition’s ‘table banging’ and calls for her to apologise to the APNU member Jaipaul Sharma for comments that were deemed “highly improper” by Speaker of the House, Raphael Trotman.

Manickchand’s comments were voiced in the House on Tuesday last as APNU’s Volda Lawrence was making her budget presentation. She was highlighting the fact that a number of underage girls are being impregnated by older men.
The Education Minister in heckling mode noted that the “APNU member Sharma” would know about such activities.
Although the Minister was initially barred by Speaker of the House from making a presentation in the House until she offered an apology, he had subsequently reversed his decision.

Leader of the Opposition, David Granger, in an invited comment yesterday said that the opposition is still demanding that the Education Minister apologise to its member, Jaipaul Sharma.
However, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party, Clement Rohee, at an earlier press conference at Freedom House yesterday said that based on an agreement that was forged between the Opposition and the Government sides on Wednesday that the Education Minister should have been allowed to speak.
He said that the meeting was convened before Trotman and saw the attendance of Chief Whips of the APNU and PPP/C, Amna Ally and Gail Teixeira, along with APNU’s Joseph Harmon and Manickchand. According to Rohee, the outcome of that meeting was that Manickchand would be allowed to speak based on certain agreed language.

However, APNU’s Harmon is adamant that the only agreement made was with regards to the Education Minister offering an apology to Jaipaul Sharma, an accord that she failed to adhere to thus triggering the ‘walk out’, yesterday.

And although the House was void of the opposition, Manickchand continued her presentation even amplifying how Guyana has been able to sustain eight consecutive years of growth. In fact Manickchand sought to applaud her colleague Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, who was instrumental in crafting the budget which, she said, is expected to “bring goodness to the people of Guyana.”
“To Dr. Singh, the Honourable Minister of Finance, we are proud of you; we are grateful to you for the efforts you have made over the years and we stand with you on this budget,” added the very vocal Education Minister.

Manickchand went on to bash comments made by the opposition earlier in the debates that the staff of the Finance Ministry “are tired and should go home.”
“I think that was one of the most unfortunate things that we have heard in this House for the entire budget debate…Professional staff can vote however they want but they should be allowed to work in peace without being targeted and their professionalism should be respected,” said Manickchand much to the support of her colleagues on the Government side.

She added that entire conferences are organised around the world to have more women involved in the budgetary process of States.
“Here in Guyana we have a young bright, hard-working, articulate person, she is a woman, she is Sonya Roopnauth, she is our Director of Budget, we should be proud as a nation that we have done what conferences are organised to do.”

“Regardless of which side of the House you sit on, that should be a matter to celebrate,” asserted the Education Minister.

Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2014/04/08/opposition-stages-walk-out-on-priya-manickchand/

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[www.inewsguyana.com] – Education Minister Priya Manickchand has welcomed the monies allotted to the education sector in the National 2014 Budget.
The education sector received a total of $32.3B in this year’s budget.

The Minister pointed out that the investment is being made with the understanding that investment in the sector can significantly help in the process of poverty alleviation.

“Education is key to alleviating poverty and this government understands that… that is why we have matched our commitment in this regard by tangible budgetary allocations,” Manickchand told the House.

According to her, for the Opposition to say the budget has nothing for the people clearly shows their lack of understanding for the investment in education. She said their failure to understand speaks to the lack of vision.

She told the House that over the years, dating back to 1990 and with increased investment in the sector there have been significant improvements in the national pass rates at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination.

She reminded the House too that in 1992, under the PNC government only five percent of the budget was given to education, adding that in 2013 15.9%of the national budget was allocated to education.

“It is the PPP that can be trusted to take the nation’s children forward and we will be the first to admit that we are unhappy with some grades but because of the investment it will become better.”

Manickchand said that the budget coincides with the implementation of the first year of the Ministry’s five year strategic plan as she spoke of the projections for teacher and student improvement under the plan.

The Minister also indicates her intent to table amendments to the Education Act which she said does not meet the needs of the sector currently.

Using the monies in the 2014 budget, Manickchand said her ministry intends to print and distribute several books for both nursery and primary students, make schools and other buildings friendlier and catering for the differently abled, improve teacher training and more importantly achieve universal secondary education this year.

Manickchand did not fail to point out too her government’s committed to developing education in the hinterland.

Source: http://www.inewsguyana.com/manickchand-defends-investment-in-education-explains-its-correlation-with-poverty-alleviation/

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