Latest update January 17th, 2025 6:30 AM
Literacy programme yields success in Guyana, other countries – official
Ms Joan Spencer-Ernandez
A literacy development programme, which has for the past five years been funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has proven successful in the six pilot schools in Guyana.
The schools which were selected from Regions Three and Four are Eccles, Chateau Margot, Company Road, Stewartville, La Retraite and Patentia Primary Schools.
In addition to Guyana, the programme was tested in Jamaica, Belize, St Lucia and St Vincent.
Dominica also joined the programme last year and has been receiving USAID funding while Trinidad and Tobago as well as Grenada came on board with funding from their respective governments.
And according to Testing and Measurement Specialist, Ms Joan Spencer-Ernandez, the programme was initially engaged with an intent of ensuring that at least 80 per cent of the students are no longer at risk for reading failure.
It is also geared at ensuring that at least 60 per cent of the students would be at or above grade expectancy level.
As part of the programme, she said that 68 schools have been targeted from the five initial countries, 61 in Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago, and 18 in Grenada.
With the provision of the relevant materials, in-service training for teachers, support services to help monitor the implementation and progress of the programme in the school, Spencer-Ernandez said that the efforts have over the years proven to be quite a success.
“We have varying degrees of success; some have done better than others and some came in at different levels of functioning.
“We did not have everybody coming in at the same level…some were weaker than others so what we did was measure growth over time…”
She said that by administering a test to students each year it has been established that 65 per cent of the students have mastered the literacy programme, while 85 per cent are no longer at risk of reading failure, which is a clear indication that the programme has achieved the goal it was intended for.
But according to Spencer-Ernandez, the USAID official funding of the programme will come to an end at the end of this year, thus efforts are being made to find ways in which it could be sustained.
She said that discussions have been ongoing over the past year with the various countries and plans were streamlined to have follow-up meetings in Guyana. These were conducted on Tuesday and yesterday at Le Meridien, Pegasus.
Yesterday’s session, according to Spencer-Ernandez, saw the attendance of persons on the Project Consultative Committee, the monitoring body of the programme, which is made up of representatives throughout the region.
She said that the aim of the meeting was to review last year’s programme and the performance of the children in the literacy initiative and to
plot the way forward in terms of sustainability of the programme in 2009 and beyond.
And according to Spencer-Ernandez, the intent is not merely to encourage private partnership to continue the programme but to infuse various methodologies in the school system, hence efforts will be made to have the various Ministries of Education take on the programme.
It is anticipated, she said, that through the Ministries the programme will be effectively expanded to other schools countrywide. The various representatives of the regions are expected to return to their respective countries and discuss the furtherance of programme with their governments.
However, several countries, according to Spencer-Ernandez, have already indicated their willingness to aid the continuance of the programme.
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