Minister of Education Priya Manickchand yesterday told the National Assembly that Guyana stands the risk of losing its children if government accedes to the Opposition’s call for schools to be closed, noting that some 70 children got pregnant during the COVID-19 related closures.
The Minister made the statement while defending her $74.4 billion allocation in the 2022 budget.
“For all the people asking for schools to keep close, right here in Guyana in 2020 11,944 children registered to write CXC, 494 were absent. In 2021 out of 9,823, 553 are absent. You are risking losing these kids forever.
“Here Sir, the highest number the Ministry has recorded, more than 70 children pregnant and Mr Speaker a particular secondary school reported yesterday said that while its Grade 10 has 130 students registered on roll, 5 have registered for CSEC. So when you come over here with your wild, politically motivated calls to close the schools understand that you are harming and hurting the children of this nation,” Manickchand said in her budget debate presentation yesterday.
After circulating a World Bank blog article titled “100 weeks into the pandemic: the importance of keeping schools open and investing in learning recovery programs” and published on January 24, 2022, Manickchand said that Guyana is well ahead of the recommendations of consolidating the curriculum to allow for more concise delivery. She added that Guyana has already been in contact with experts both locally and internationally to ensure that it happens and is being implemented in the school.
The Minister added that more teachers are being trained to implement that consolidated curriculum explaining that some 1,200 have benefitted thus far.
In Guyana, schools were closed from March 2020 with online learning coming on board in September of the same year. With challenges ranging from access to devices, internet and electricity to delivery of the online classes, the Ministry started a phased reopening of school. In January 2022, schools were opened to face-to-face learning for every Grade and since then the Guyana Teachers’ Union and the Opposition have been calling for them to be closed again owing to the rapid increase in COVID-19 numbers.
Manickchand lauded the strides made in recovering the learning loss experienced due to the closure of schools. She boasted that in 2021, it was the first time in Guyana’s history that all Grade Six students had access to the textbooks they required to prepare for the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA).
“In 2022, all primary students will have all the textbooks they need because this budget is providing money for us to buy as well for most of the secondary population. Mr Speaker, we wrote our own reading series. I was on the floor of this House begging, on behalf of the nation, that the reader series be completed. We started in 2015, we published readers one, two and three by 2015 (and) 18 months later, and the honourable (former) Minister (of Education Nicolette Henry) and her coalition decided that wasn’t important so they dropped the entire publication, replaced it with nothing and come here now to tell us what we must do for children,” Manickchand argued.
She added that the Ministry has bought the rights to two new textbooks, Science Made Easy and Social Studies Made Easy, from local author Jonathan Benn and had them circulated to all public schools. Benn’s books were only available to private schools previously. She further stated that budget 2022 speaks to the procurement of 11,000 electronic devices (flash drives and tablets) to be distributed to vulnerable learners and that it was disappointing when two opposition members of parliament, from the hinterland, argued against that allocation.
The argument against the procurement of the devices was premised on the lack of access to electricity, particularly in the hinterland. On that note, Manickchand informed the House that by the end of 2022 all nursery and primary schools will have access to electricity so that they can utilize the Guyana Learning Channel. The programme would also see those schools having access to cable to be able to view the Learning Channel.
“Mr Speaker, we are investing in learning recovery by expanding the Learning Channel…the government of Guyana, the PPP/C government of Guyana is preparing to give the entire school population lessons through the Learning Channel, through the radio. This project is preparing us for that.
“So when you come here and say how this budget is going to help with learning loss. There is no line item named learning loss, it’s the policies and programmes we have put in place that will help recovery that will fund the recovery of the children in this country,” she added.
The Education Minister further stated that the government’s expansion of the school feeding programme is also another means of recovering learning loss. This year the programme received a $2 billion allocation. Additionally, she said that the government is also improving and expanding the buses, boats and bicycle programme that was started under former President David Granger.
Defending the government’s decision to provide parents with cash as opposed to vouchers as part of the ‘Because We Care’ programme, Manickchand argued that there was countrywide consultation prior to its implementation and the suggestions of the parents were listened to. She added that the government is now increasing its Cyril Potter College of Education intake so that by 2025 the goal of 100% trained or in- training teachers can be realized.
Manickchand also used her time on the floor to thank the teachers who have braved the pandemic to continue teaching the nation’s children.
‘Proud of my record’
Making her final parliamentary contribution, former Education Minister Nicolette Henry accused the government of having no programme to address learning losses brought on by the pandemic. She said that the disruption to the education system caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has left serious learning gaps that need to be bridged.
“Unprecedented times Mr Speaker call for unprecedented solutions. The routine of the past as captured in the 2022 budget is unlikely to be adequate. I have to say that a structured, thoughtful approach to covering missed content and providing interventions and remediation will help our students catch up and I believe carefully managing resources will also help fuel that effort,” she said.
She contended that the measures in the budget are merely routine and cannot provide the transformational shifts required for the sector to rebound. She said that the history of the education sector suggests that the identified key academic areas can be revived if the resources are directed on the correct path.
“History suggests that mere time and money will not remove or reduce the threats such as inherent inefficiency and ineffectiveness. There are also diverse distractions that may lead to dispersion of positive energy and the other challenges that have stymied progress and all which are more likely to be effectively addressed through a significant behavioural change in diverse groups,” she added.
Henry said that much more emphasis should be placed on those left further behind so as to ensure equitable distribution of education.
The former Minister said she is proud of her record as leader of the education sector.
“The coalition is proud of its record in the education sector and I stand here today to defend that. School attendance and schools’ performance improved as a result of the initiatives such as the public education transportation system which was aimed at combatting high truancy and dropout rates by providing boats, buses, bicycle and also the public education nutrition service,” Henry said.