Minister stresses importance of stakeholder collaboration

Sep 02, 2016 News

…as Education Month launched

Under the theme, “Each Child Matters: Stakeholders Unite for the Enhancement of

A dance performance by the children of the National Dance School.

Education”, the Ministry of Education – with a colourful display of dance and music – launched Education Month 2016 at its Brickdam, Georgetown location yesterday morning.
Delivering the Education Month Message was the subject Minister, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, who stressed the importance of stakeholder collaboration for the enhancement of education in Guyana.
He highlighted this year’s theme, labelling it as “unique” since according to him, it seeks to emphasise a truly child-centred education and the role of stakeholders in its realisation.
While admitting that it may be argued everyone in society makes up the stakeholders of the education system, the Minister stated that those stakeholders maybe disaggregated based on their specific interests, rather than simply being aggregated as beneficiaries from the citizenry perspective.
“Allow me to say here that what I know, and I’m deeply convinced about, is if we do not get education right, then nothing else will go right. It is that fundamental”
He informed the gathering of the important role that his ministry plays and added that all his Cabinet colleagues depend on the Ministry of Education to provide the human resource they need to advance their work.
Roles and outcome of Stakeholder participation
Further, the Minister stated that pupils, students, the educators, parents, employers, the private education providers and the government, can all be identified as stakeholders.

Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine (left); Minister of Public Security, George Norton (second from right); and PTA Representative, Robert Forrester posing with pupils who were present at the launch yesterday.

He categorised the pupils and students as central, since they are both objects and subjects of the system, and are its primary beneficiaries, which automatically makes them equal contributors to the success of the system, even though they are the ones who benefit immediately and directly from it.
“It is the attitude of the stakeholders – their commitment and dedication along with their aptitude – that facilitates learning and consequently acquisition of knowledge that provides the skills and competencies that are then available to society as human resource with the capacity to contribute to societal development,” the Education Minister said.
The educators on the other hand, he asserted, are the knowledge-sharers and the facilitators of learning. He informed the gathering that educators are seen as essential partners in the process and without them, there will be no exposure to learning opportunities – which is the very objective of the education system.
He added that educators’ involvement in the system provides them with an opportunity of a livelihood, thus providing the means for the sustenance and enhancement of their lives.
“The parents on the other hand, are engaged in the process of self reproduction and embrace the education system as a key vehicle in that process, since it provides offspring with the tools to access and utilise the human patrimony in their quest to sustain and enhance human development,” the Minister said.
The system also provides employers with the human resource that they can put to work in pursuit of their productive and service-oriented activities, hence enabling their own beneficial engagement while simultaneously enabling human survival through the provision of tangible and intangible necessities, he added.
It is in this vein that the Minister explained that because all stakeholders are beneficiaries of the education system, they should have an interest in the state of the system and its ongoing growth; its development and its impact on society.
Hence this year, the focus is on reiterating to the stakeholder how important the system has been and continues to be, to their very existence, growth and development as individuals, and the development of society at large, Dr. Roopnaraine stated.
He continued that the Ministry of Education, while continuing its routine to provide education as the vital social service, has launched some specific initiatives. One of these initiatives, he outlined, was the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the education system.
“It is that process that will allow all of the stakeholders to express their relative, their reflective and prospective views about the system thus allowing them to help fashion a system both as its beneficiaries and equally important – as its benefactors.”
He said that the Ministry also recently made two appointments and is forging ahead with the establishment of comprehensive systems and programmes.
Appointment of Coordinators of PTA, Private Schools
The appointments are those of a Coordinator of Parent/Teacher Associations (PTA) and the Coordinator of Private Schools. Both appointments are intended to regulate the involvement of two essential stakeholders and give them an opportunity to make a structured contribution to the management and enhancement of the system.
“It is essential that parents engage their children and the system that provides a foundational service to them. Without the parents in active and fertile collaboration with their teachers, we are not going to succeed. The education of the child is too important to be left only to parents or only to teachers. Education cannot be delivered in a vacuum. The act of parenting is complementary to the system and the enhancement of the skill of parenting, in as much as it provides an opportunity for the parents to be engaged in the governance of the schools while supplementing the delivery of the curriculum at home,” Dr. Roopnaraine asserted.
The Education Minister said that more and more Private Schools are entering the education sector given the quintessential role that education plays in human and societal development.
He added that given Government’s mandate to regulate the affairs of the society, the Ministry will ensure that private schools are facilitated in the delivery of education and they are regulated to assure quality service.
In concluding, the Minister said that he truly believes that if stakeholders are to inspire children; if they are to provide them with the necessary energy and the necessary skills to make themselves productive and whole human beings, a lot of work needs to be done.
“I keep stressing, it is going to be best done if we forge active partnerships between the schools and the home. Without the parents, we will not succeed, without the teachers we will not succeed. It is really in their joint activities, their active collaboration that we will produce the children that we in fact, aspire to produce – the Citizens of the New Guyana.”