EDUCATION Minister, Ms. Priya Manickchand Tuesday visited the North Georgetown Secondary School and held an interactive session with students, parents and teachers to assess the progress made in the areas of Mathematics and English through the most recent enhancement project in the education sector. 

The project is aimed at increasing percentage passes in Mathematics and English, by at least 20 percent and will ensure that children have all the resources needed to bring about a change in the two subject areas thus boost the national pass mark.
According to Ms. Manickchand this is her third visit to schools across the country to get a first hand glimpse of what has been going on with the initiative and to see how well schools are progressing as well as to identify areas where shortcoming have been detected.

Manickchand said it is not any secret that Guyana like the rest of the Caribbean region is aware that there is a need for improvement in the areas of Mathematics and English and as such steps are being take to regularise this.
“I have been visiting schools. I went to Essequibo yesterday. I have been to Berbice. I went to Region 3. This is the Maths and English programme that we are monitoring. Why we are doing that is because our results like the rest of the Caribbean have been dismal.”

She continued to explain that while English Language has seen far better results than Mathematics over the years, Guyana is making every effort to change this.
“Mathematics has remained a bleak area not only in Guyana but for countries across the world and the Caribbean region. Guyana is not going to throw up its hands and say Guyana is going to do bad anyway, we came up with a programme that we think could see results and we have introduced it to forty one schools across the country.”
According to Manickchand, the initiative is a five party project between, the Government, teachers, parents, students and resource personnel, all of who are expected ensure that the aim of improving performance levels in Mathematics and English at the Caribbean Entrance Examination Certificate (CSEC) is accomplished.

“It is really a five-people party and we have government, parents, teachers, resource personnel, and students. Government gives resources so we give text books study guides dvds, calculators draft papers, and all the resources that we had and was at our disposal we acquired, procured and paid for them and distributed them to almost all half of our CXC population,” Manickchand said.
As a part of the project the minster has mandated teachers to have extra sessions after school in Mathematics and English to assist in this regard also.

“We asked the teachers to do several things like extra classes and create more focused working environment and so on and I must say that all the teachers we spoke to were very cooperative and happy to do this and this shows the spirit of a teacher wanting to do what’s good for Guyana’s children,” Manickchand disclosed.
She reiterated that a parent’s input in this regard is very important. She said in December when the initiative was officially launched parents had promised to be fully committed and she urged them to continue along this path.
“In December we had spoken to parents and students asking them to commit fully and asking parents to be consciously committed to students …then we have resource people who are going into the schools who could tell us whether the materials have reached the hands of the students and whether the classes are actually happening or if a teachers goes off on leave and leave a class unsupervised and so those people have been very helpful,” Manickchand said.

She pointed out that already, students have sat two different mock exams to see whether they have been improvements. “We are visiting schools for the third time and so far we have had two mock exams one in January and one in March and we have seen tremendous improvements from January to March,” Manickchand indicated.
She said it is her hope that this upward trend can continue over the years and added that she is very much satisfied with the outcome of the initiative thus far.
The minister believes that there have been major improvements in these two areas in a short space of time  pointing out that Guyana’s education sector is on stream and will see major steps being taken to revitalise it.
“Actually, what I have seen in the short time as Minister of Education is a renewed interest across the board in addressing Mathematics and English problems that students encounter with and I have seen improvements generally. We intend to keep inspiring students from as far as we can to CXC to get them to give their best shot at this Exam,” the minister offered.

Government has been playing a major part in this new project and had awarded an $85.7M contract for the execution of the Mathematics and English Pilot Project, which was launched by the minister in selected secondary schools.

The Pilot project was first implemented in 32 selected schools in several administrative regions, and has allowed for intense interactions between students, parents and the teachers of the two critical subject areas, with the Education Ministry being the facilitating body.

The minister reiterated the Education Ministry’s support towards the success of the pilot project and expressed the confidence that, with the commitment required, it can become a model for the rest of the Caribbean.

Source: https://guyanachronicle.com/2012/03/29/maths-english-language-pilot-project-progressing-well