Hinterland students need equitable access to education – Education Minister

Jul 11, 2015 News

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…says gap between top and bottom pupils must be narrowed

As celebrations for the top pupils of the National Grade Six Assessment continue, Education Minister Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine has opined that more equitable access to education is needed for the nation’s hinterland students.
Dr. Roopnaraine also said that the gap between the country’s top performers and those at the bottom needed to be narrowed if the education system was to be bettered.
Roopnaraine made the statements during a ceremony which honoured the top 1% pupils at this year’s exam.
Roopnaraine noted that while the day was one for celebration, reflection was also a necessity.
“While we’re here to formally recognise and reward our best performers, we need to keep uppermost in our minds that there are other children who wrote these examinations who also deserve our undivided attention.
From those who made it into the top five per cent to those who scored in the bottom,” the Education Minister said.
He further shared that one of his Ministry’s main goals within the next five years is ensuring that the gap between the top 100 pupils and the bottom 100 pupils is narrowed.
“We want to close the gap between our top performers and those at the bottom,” he emphasised.
He said, too, that the Ministry will work to ensure that the “distribution of excellence” is equitable across the Regions. According to Roopnaraine, pupils from Georgetown and the rest of Region #4 accounted for 120 out of the 166 pupils in the top one per cent.
“This says to me that our skills and resources in education are inequitable…this is a challenge to which we must rise,” Roopnaraine said. He added, “We owe it to our hinterland students to end their deprivation; they must get their fair share of our investments.”
According to the NGSA results, Region Nine was the only hinterland Region to appear in the top one per cent of the country’s performers. However, only one pupil from the entire Region Nine managed this feat. This pupil achieved 516 marks and was the awarded a place at the Bishops’ High School.
Meanwhile, Minister Roopnaraine acknowledged the disparity in performances between public and private schools.
After noting that competition at this year’s exams had been fierce, with a mere 15 marks separating the highest and the lowest in the top one per cent, Roopnaraine acknowledged that private schools had performed exceptionally well. According to the results, private school pupils accounted for over 55 per cent of the top one per cent.
However, Roopnaraine said, the trend was not one for alarm or concern.
“This is also an achievement for the school system and particularly the private schools, something that we should not shy away from. We have become accustomed to a standard of excellence from our public school systems but somewhere along the line, public education at primary level has been challenged,” Roopnaraine said. He went on that this challenge should be welcomed.
“I know the temptation is for many of us of the public education sector to see the rise of private primary education as a challenge to the status quo of the public school. Instead, I see it as a challenge to the public education system to become more competitive in the delivery of our core services. We must rise to the challenge,” he emphasised.
He further added that the disparity is primarily a question of the availability of resources.
An analysis of data from the 2015 NGSA showed that, out of the 166 students in the top one per cent, 95 of them had been from private schools. This accounts for 56.6 per cent of the top performers in the country.
Further, the Success Elementary School copped approximately 15 per cent of the top students with its 25 candidates. In fact, the country’s top two performers were students of the private school with 530 and 529 marks respectively. The highest attainable score at this year’s exam was 535.
While Success Elementary copped the most spots, another private school came a close second. This year, Mae’s U12 earned 22 spots in the top one per cent of the country, approximately 13 per cent of the country’s best performers.
Academy of Excellence, a private school located in Region Three, came in third with 12 of the top spots while New Guyana earned 11 spots.
The public schools finally made appearances with St. Gabriel’s Primary and St. Margaret’s Primary; the schools earned 10 spots and 8 spots respectively. Green Acres, a private school, also earned 8 spots.
Over the years, there has been much debate over disparities between public and private schools. Though Roopnaraine had previously emphasised that there was no need for any such debate, he nonetheless said that more can be done to improve the education system in Guyana.
Former Education Minister Priya Manickchand had pointed out a number of factors that would possibly lead to better performances amongst private schools. She had said that these factors include the screening of children before entry into these schools, the decreased difficulties private schools experience in dismissing teachers and increased involvement and investment by parents who choose to enroll their children in the private institutions.

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