Latest update November 27th, 2024 1:00 AM
COI recommendations will be implemented – Education Minister
Failure to implement the forthcoming recommendations of a Commission of Inquiry (COI) will not be an
Education Minister,
Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine
option. This assertion was made by Minister of Education Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine who, speaking to the media on Wednesday questioned “who wants to waste time holding a whole COI, getting recommendations from serious people, and then waste their time by not implementing what is recommended? I don’t want to be part of that!”
For this reason, he noted that once recommendations are put forward, the Ministry will seek to implement them. But according to him, implementing recommendations will obviously require a number of things, cost being paramount.
“Already the Ministry of Education consumes the lion’s share of the budget (and) we just have to ensure that all of those resources that the Government puts into education…that we get real quality for what we spend,” said the Education Minister.
The first sitting of the COI, which is being chaired by former Chief Education Officer, Mr. Ed Caesar, is slated to commence at 16:30 hours today at St. Stanislaus College, Brickdam, Georgetown.
The COI into the education system is intended to provide evidence for the revision, upgrading and extension of the Ministry of Education’s Strategic Plan. According to Minister Roopnaraine, already a lot of work has gone into education.
“We do have the Strategic Plan and so on, and my hope is that through the COI we are going to look at all of those things that have been done already. We are going to put the strategic plan into the Commission and we are going to hold it, and my hope is not to restrict it to Georgetown, but take it across the country.”
But even ahead of the setting up of the COI, the Minister disclosed that he has been conducting informal consultations with education stakeholders. This has seen the Minister reaching out to stakeholders in Essequibo by having a series which he has dubbed “Education Grounding,” which has essentially been “bottom house” meetings with parents, teachers, students and people from the community who are interested in all things education-related.
“I held a few of those meetings…they were very vibrant and I wanted to continue them throughout the country, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to,” said Minister Roopnaraine. He confessed that “I haven’t been able to keep up because of conflicting commitments.”
However, he added “I want to revive them, because I think that that level of consultation, though informal – those informal gatherings in the bottom houses – can really give a kind of real stimulus to what we are attempting to do.”
In order to ensure that all stakeholders desirous of contributing to the COI are able to do so, the Ministry of Education has published notices in the newspapers inviting members of the public to submit memoranda on their perception of the state of the Education System, inclusive of factual illustrations where possible, and recommendations for the enhancement of the system.
According to the Ministry, memoranda should be submitted no later than May 14, 2016 and should be addressed to the Ministry of Education Commission of Inquiry Secretariat, Ministry of Education, 26 Brickdam, Stabroek, or via email [email protected].
Meanwhile, persons desirous of supplementing their memoranda with oral presentations to the Commission may indicate in their submission the desire to do so. Added to this, the Ministry has advised that persons who are desirous of making oral submissions without submitting memoranda may also write to the Commission, no later than April 30, 2016.
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