Neglect by teachers in pandemic hampering students’ development-Min. Manickchand

Feb 12, 2021 News

The Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand

Kaieteur News – Following a number of disappointing reports of teachers not engaging their students during virtual online sessions, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand has stated that their neglect is hampering children’s development during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Manickchand made these comments on the sidelines of an event earlier this week where she urged teachers to fulfill their mandate. The Minister stated that most teachers have been executing their duties admirably amid the pandemic; however, those who are not doing so continue to hamper their students.
“In this very challenging circumstance, our teachers have not been trained to do this but they have been doing it without training, and they’ve been throwing themselves into it and that’s the majority of what we have been seeing. The problem with judging value based on a majority is very dangerous because if it’s one child that (doesn’t get) all the attention we want them to have, it’s one too many,” Manickchand lamented.
Further, the Education Minister said that her Ministry does not intend to penalize teachers who may be experiencing challenges while adding that these teachers will be engaged on the possible difficulties they may be facing.
Manickchand also addressed the reopening of schools where she stated that this is solely dependent on the advice the Education Ministry gets from the Ministry of Health, which would authorize the extent to which this could happen. In the interim, she said that schools will remain closed.
Schools were closed since March last year when Guyana confirmed its first COVID-19 case and went into lockdown. A partial and conditional reopening was granted for Grades 10, 11 and 12 students in November to allow them to prepare for the upcoming Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) examinations this year.

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