Private Schools better responded to realities of COVID-19 over Public Schools - report highlights

Private Schools better responded to realities of COVID-19 over Public Schools – report highlights

Mar 19, 2021 News

– but attendance dropped in Region Seven

Reasons for not attending school during the COVID-19 pandemic

Kaieteur News – Private schools have been able to foster a better response to the realities of COVID-19 as compared to public schools, according to a “Socio-Economic Impact Assessment of COVID-19 on Households in Guyana,” compiled by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the Civil Defence Commission (CDC). For the education sector, the report-analyzed access to education amid the pandemic on both a regional and national level and it was under the regional level in which the aforementioned was highlighted.

Attendance at school before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Since the closure of all schools in March last year, many issues were highlighted about learning during the pandemic in public schools. Notably, the only students that would have returned to physical classrooms sessions were those in Grades 10, 11 and 12, as well as technical vocational education students, after the government approved a conditional reopening last November.
Even the reopening for those students stemmed from learning issues that occurred during the seven-month hiatus. It was previously reported that during consultations with teachers, parents and students, which was conducted by the Ministry of Education, it was expressed that the lack of internet access was hampering the efficient roll-out of online learning, which was needed for the preparation for the upcoming Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) examinations this year.
Further, the lack of internet access seemed to have affected the entire public school system, as this was also reported, with the hinterland regions suffering the most.
“It seems safe to conclude that except for the hinterland regions, the private schools per region were largely better able to respond to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic than the public schools,” the UNDP/CDC report noted.
This was because private schools also “fared somewhat better insofar as it relates to the differences in averages per region before and during the pandemic. Whereas the average number of children attending private schools per household with children per region range from 0.02 (Region 8) to 1.07 (Region 7).” The report said that before the pandemic private school attendance ranged from 0.0 (Region 1) to 0.24 (Region 3).
However, the most dramatic drop for private schools was in Region 7, where the average moved from 1.07 to 0.11. “Students of private schools therefore appear to have largely been able to continue formal education except perhaps in the hinterland regions (Region 1, 7, 8 and 9) to some extent,” it outlined. Even with those attendances, private schools still seem to have responded better to the pandemic.
The report stated that the main reason for absence from school during the pandemic is the unavailability of classes online, which gives an indication that private schools in the hinterland region recorded a lowered attendance because hinterland areas have been generally struggling with adequate internet access.
A lack of access to the internet has been cited in each region as a reason for non-attendance at school.

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