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Education Minister defends policy toward President’s College
Although it was created to be the country’s top secondary school with residential provision more than three decades ago,
Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand
today President’s College no longer boasts this status. This development was confirmed by Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, during a press conference hosted at the National Centre for Educational Resource Development last week.
According to the Minister the school, is currently not functioning in the capacity it was designed since “it is not meeting the needs of our children best.”
The school however, remains one of the country’s senior secondary schools providing instructions that are on par with other schools.
And although the school was not highlighted among the top secondary schools to which National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) candidates were allotted, the Minister said that 203 children from across Guyana have been awarded a place there.
As an ‘A’ List school, Minister Manickchand explained that President’s College is the top secondary school on East Coast Demerara. Moreover, candidates residing between Cummings Lodge and Mahaica who attain 491 or more at the NGSA are awarded non-residential placement at President’s College.
She disclosed that candidates from Regions One, Two, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten who have the stipulated high scores are permitted residential placement at the school.
The Minister said that “it is actually serving more persons and more needy persons now.”
She said that when President’s College started, it served as an option for the top performers of the country many of whom instead opted to attend Queen’s College. “You could choose which one you wanted to go to but what happened, was that you had a school that a lot of people were choosing…”recalled the Minister who herself was guilty of so doing.
“For example my entire family, brother, sister and I, we all got PC but we chose to go to QC; so you had the school (PC) heavily under populated but extremely expensive to run because it is a residential school, and while that was happening we had all these children from (Regions) One, Two, Five, Seven, Eight, Nine and 10 who needed a good school to go to but couldn’t access it (because) it was only for the top echelon,” admitted Manickchand.
But according to her, “We are in a different place now; even children who are getting Queen’s College are not coming to Queen’s College because there are schools in their communities that are providing such incredible education that they are choosing to stay at home.”
She alluded to the fact that Yogeeta Persaud, who was the overall best performer at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination last year, was in fact a product of a regional secondary school. Also, Zimeena Rasheed who made history when she wrote the most subjects undertaken by a single candidate at CSEC, like Persaud, opted to attend the Anna Regina Multilateral School.
“When they wrote Common Entrance (now NGSA) they both got Queen’s College but they chose to stay at Anna Regina. People are choosing to stay in their communities and this is a phenomenon we started seeing five or six years ago,” observed the Education Minister.
She noted , “If we were to say we are offering President’s College only to the top students then essentially what you are saying, is that 120 elite students in this country will have the option of going to either PC or QC; some will choose QC, some will choose PC and both (schools) will be under-populated which is not good for the delivery of quality education, and it really denies children from the hinterland the opportunity of accessing laboratories and other facilities to help them do better.”
Ever since the Ministry changed its policy regarding the school, thereby allowing entrants from regional schools, the Minister said that the scores have improved considerably. “So these children are coming from somewhere in Region One that can’t come to this school except we allow them to live there, they are getting (Grade) Ones and so on at CSEC that they may not have been able to get in their Regions if they stayed…”
The Minister is convinced that the situation that obtains is a much improved one even as she insisted that President’s College, which offers students a total of 17 subjects, remains one of the better performing schools in the country.
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