Education sector more crucial with expected rapid growth of economy – Govt.

Aug 21, 2019 News

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In order for a country to realise improved livelihoods, economic growth and development in an effective and equitably manner, these features must all be underpinned by a citizenry with a strong educational background.
This notion has been amplified by Government in its first mid-year report for 2019.
Without the foregoing in place, government is cognizant that Guyana runs the risks of “succumbing to increasing disparities, wastage of public funds, the resource curse, including a decline in competitiveness and economic stability, worsening crime and social tensions, among others.”
But despite, presumably, Government’s best efforts to arrest the potential problems, it has not been reaping the desired results.
In fact, in the report Government admitted that although there have been deliberate efforts to increase spending in the education sector and tactical moves to grow the number of trained teachers, mixed results have been forthcoming.
In order to point things in the right direction, Government has theorised that the education sector in the preparation of its next Strategic Plan, should address the number of prevailing issues including the re-examination of teacher performance and exploration of innovative strategies for education delivery.
This is imperative since it has been deduced that maintaining the status quo is clearly untenable and restrictive to Guyana’s development.
In the report it is underscored, “The role of education in the determination of the pace of economic diversification has long been known. A 2008 study by Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann, highlighted empirical results displaying the importance of both minimal [basic] and high-level skills, the complementarity of skills and the quality of economic institutions, and the robustness of the relationship between skills and growth.”
“International comparisons incorporating expanded data on cognitive skills reveal much larger skill deficits in developing countries than generally derived from just school enrolment and attainment.
“The magnitude of change needed makes clear that closing the economic gap with developed countries will require major structural changes in schooling institutions, including in Guyana’s case,” the report continues.
Moreover, the need to accelerate improving Guyana’s public education sector has been proposed, especially in light of the rapid growth of the economy anticipated with oil production expected to commence next year.
In order to mitigate the perils of the resource curse, Government accepted that the education system must be able to: effectively deliver a variety of programmes and skills, with special attention on science, technology and innovation, into the economy to allow for diversification and ensure that all children are strongly supported to reach their full potential and become highly productive contributors to the economy, both in the private and public sectors.
The report nevertheless went on to underscore that government recognises the limitations of the current system to meet these demands when public education expenditure, teacher qualification and the performance of students at the Grades Two, Four and Six assessments are examined.
While for both 2018 and 2019 the pass rate for Mathematics remained at 43 percent, English A was 67 percent in 2018 and 77 percent this year. Students achieving Grades One to Three in Mathematics and English Language, moved from 40 percent to 45 percent and 46 percent to 63 percent respectively.
Of note, there has been an increase in matriculation by 11 percentage points over the period 2014 – 2018 at the secondary level. However, this still represents less than half of students attaining Grades One to Three in Mathematics.
According to the mid-year report for the first half of this year, Government informed that the authorities are yet to disaggregate this data between scores.
However, these statistics only give a picture of the performance at the level of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certification [CSEC] examination.
Further analysis reveals very daunting the progress of students across the school system, especially when the performances in 2018 are taken into consideration.
“More than half of students are not passing English and only about half are passing Mathematics,” the government admitted in the report.
Recognising that such “performance is inimical to a student’s growth and ability to learn as they progress to the upper grades”, government remains fully aware has also deduced that “it is also untenable to building a strong and productive society.”
The troubling snowball effect, Government has been able to uncover, is experienced at the Grade Four level where over 60 percent of students are not passing English and over 55 percent not passing Mathematics. At the Grade Six level, performance in Mathematics, Social Studies and Science remain low, in 2019, ranging between 36 to 41 percent of students passing, though English is slightly better with 56 percent passing.
The way to address this dilemma is clear and Government has taken note, too, pointing out in the report that “early childhood education is paramount in building a strong foundation that will allow a child to participate meaningfully and learn more effectively as they progress through their school years.”
But even as government moves to address the challenges in the education system, it faces yet another issue. With regard to Mathematics, which underpins basic logic and reasoning skills, there are currently just 35 Mathematics Specialist/Master trainers at the Secondary level who offer support to teachers at this level.
However, there are no Specialist Mathematics teachers at the Primary level. As such government has asserted that “The deficit of specialist teachers in mathematics and other subject areas needs to be urgently addressed.”

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