Latest update January 18th, 2025 7:00 AM
Top Education officials review strategic plan
By Sharmain Cornette
A section of the gathering yesterday
In order to review the progress made in pursuit of the implementation of the Education Strategic Plan 2008-2013, top officials of the Education Ministry yesterday met at the Aracari Resort at Versailles, West Bank Demerara.
Minister Shaik Baksh who offered a synopsis of aspects of the Plan, had since earlier this year announced that efforts will be made to review its progress at least once on an annual basis.
However, yesterday he announced renewed arrangements to have the plan reviewed twice yearly. As such, another review will be held in June of next year, a move he believes tells of the importance attached to the strategic plan. The implementation of the plan commenced during the latter part of last year, thus a single year of its existence has already elapsed. But according to the Minister, the planning framework being utilised is in fact not new within the Ministry of Education.
“We have had several plans over a numbers of years going back historically and each plan was borrowing and building on the plan that went before.”
The efforts to implement plans are in fact an indication of the significance that is placed on a planning framework which is very vital in making assumptions, Baksh noted. He expressed hope that the current plan under review has been able to make realistic assumptions, otherwise it could be compromised.
“I myself have read the plan thoroughly from page to page and most of the assumptions are realistic, but it is contingent upon many factors which will have to come into play.”
Financial resources was cited by Baksh as one of the most important factors needed to support the plan. And according to him, there are indications that the Ministry will receive the resources required once it is duly earned. He pointed out that the government will in no way look at the plan and decide on its own how much should be awarded, but rather resources will be made available as it becomes necessary. “Resources have been flowing. We have been making representation and we have to show by our performance overall in the various components of the plan that we need the money and that the money will be put to efficient use. We have to give value to what we are doing, that is very critical.”
According to Baksh, in the area of Information Technology there has been extra budgetary support over the years as in the area of Literacy, which got double the amount in 2009 when compared to last year. Even in the area of teacher education and training, the Ministry has been able to secure a grant of US$3.5M which had to be approved by government as a central allocation.
The Minister is of the view that previous plans did not yield much success because of the absence of a strong monitoring and evaluation mechanism. “We will have to build capacity here and we will have to do all that it takes as we go along to strengthen the monitoring mechanism that we have.” As such, he regarded yesterday’s session as one intended to serve as a learning process which could lend to improvement by June next year in terms of monitoring and evaluation.
The purpose of yesterday’s exercise was to examine each individual component of the strategic plan and discuss same with the aim of making the implementation of the plan an achievable objective.
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