Latest update November 5th, 2024 1:00 AM
Addressing inequity in education high on Ministry’s agenda
Moves are apace to address the structural determinants of inequity when it comes to the delivery of education.
This is according to Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry, who revealed that the sector is keenly looking to address factors such as poverty, deficient policies and inefficient delivery of systems that have been known to prevent children from realizing their full potential.
To bring its vision, in this regard, to fruition, the Ministry will utilize a portion of its allocation from the 2018 national budget.
In his presentation of the budget three Mondays ago, Finance Minister Winston Jordan said, “Improving the quality of education will not be fixed by building more schools and buying more furniture”.
He pointed out then, too, that while non-academic standards continue to be critical to the quality of education delivery, it is the presence of a teacher who cares enough to ensure that each child masters literacy and numeracy at the lower grades that will influence their performance in future years.
For this reason, Jordan assured, “we will continue to add to the pool of trained teachers, which currently stands at 77 percent, in order to ensure that each child is afforded the best possible education. This year, we expect that 450 graduates will join the trained teacher workforce, and 37 untrained teachers will complete the teacher upgrading programme, to prepare for the trained teachers’ certificate programme.”
But according to the Finance Minister, in 2018, “we expect an additional 335 trained teachers to join the workforce”. He disclosed that the intent of government is to improve the quality of learning by providing a stimulating environment.
In so doing, Minister Henry disclosed that in the coming year, deliberate efforts will be made, for the first time in over a decade, to reintroduce training of teachers in Region Eight.
Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry
“I listened to a former Minister of Education on the other side [parliamentary opposition] who said that 77 percent trained teachers would not help us. The literature is replete with evidence of the benefits of having trained teachers in the classroom. This measure will not only help us, but will also ensure that all our regions, throughout the length and breadth of Guyana, now have teacher training hubs,” said Minister Henry.
She disclosed that an increase, by 80 percent, of teachers’ remote area incentive, is only part of a package of a comprehensive plan to bridge the gap between the hinterland and coastland communities.
“This is how you provide affordable access to education in far-flung communities. While we may not have gotten everything right, we have always put the people first. I realized that transforming the education system will not be easy, and that we are likely to encounter a lot of challenges along the way, like fixing the school at Kato.
“So let me say to the people of this country – whether you live in Lethem or Linden, Babu John or Cove and John, transforming the education system is not only exciting and challenging, but most importantly, a necessary journey that we have to take as one people, one nation with a common destiny,” Minister Henry amplified.
Meanwhile, the Education Minister shared that for the first time in over a decade, “we have conducted conditions survey of all our schools and will use this data for maintenance and infrastructural works to be undertaken by the ministry.”
Further, in the quest to improve the education system, Henry said that the Ministry, in keeping with international best practices for high performing education system, is prioritizing Special Education Needs in 2018. This is due to the fact that numerous children in this country needlessly endure the horror of academic underperformance due to a lack of appropriate cognitive, social and emotional support, care and treatment options, Minister Henry reflected.
“The evidence is saying to us that these conditions are treatable and perhaps avoidable with early diagnosis and treatment.
In 2018, the newly constructed Special Education diagnosis and Assimilation Centre at Turkeyen will be outfitted with appropriate equipment and furnishings,” she informed. According to her, for much too long, because of the absence of a specific diagnostic and assimilation facility, many children were left to develop into full-blown conditions, at a tremendous personal and societal cost in their later years.
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