In Quest of a Knowledge-Based Society

Dec 30, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

The Ministry of Education (MoE) is playing a key role in laying the education infrastructure to propel the social and economic transformation of the country that would lead to “fairness” in the allocation of state resources to all Guyanese, irrespective of race, gender, region, or religious affiliation.

However, one formidable challenge to the pursuit of fairness is the high poverty level which, according to the World Bank, was 48% (calculated at $(US)5.50 per day minimum earning per household) in 2019. Given the country’s rapid development, including job creation, this poverty level is likely to decline to 40% by year-end (2022). When a sizeable impact of the country’s oil wealth is realized by 2028-2030, the poverty level is expected to decline to 10%. A bright spark to push forth poverty reduction is for more citizens to acquire a good education. And the PPPC government says that it is providing the resources to make this happen.

The government’s transformative statement on education is captured in the Education Sector Plan, 2021-2025: “Education has been signaled as a national priority by successive administrations. There was, and continues to be, a clear recognition that greater national development and a reduction in poverty are integrally associated with a sound education system.” Consistent with this statement, the PPPC government has ensured that Education receive the highest budgetary allocation of $(G) 74.4 billion (or 11.5%) in 2022.

MoE has been working to stall and reverse the teacher’ attrition; improve the number of trained teachers across all schools; reduce the number of ‘out of school’ children; expand connectivity; fill existing teaching vacancies swiftly; introduce computer coding: address the posting of teachers to hinterland locations; and continue to strive for excellence in the quest to modernize the education system, through GOAL and other such measures as computer coding and skills-technical development.

MoE says that the GOAL (Guyana Online Academy of Learning) scholarships programme (6,000 awards were made in 2021 and 4,500 awards made in 2022) should also attract enough indigenous people to become qualified teachers and to fill vacancies in their communities. The GOAL project has brought many students who would have been previously excluded from secondary and tertiary education into the higher education stream.

The attrition rate among female teachers is 8-9% compared with 2-3% for males. Significantly, proportionately more females are trained as teachers compared with males. For example, there are 69% trained female teachers compared with less than 1% male trained teachers at the nursery level; while there are 55% female trained teachers at the secondary level compared with 16% for male trained teachers. The Ministry says that its goal is to achieve full training for all 100% of teachers in the system by 2025. Students’ enrollment in 2017-2018 was “95% at both primary and secondary levels through to grade 9,” but the average daily attendance (2019-2020) at Nursery level was 75%; at primary, it was 79%; and at secondary, it was 74%. The existing dropout rate is not available but the UNICEF study (2017) notes: “at risk of dropping out are 11.7% for children across grades 1 to 6 and 4.8% across grades 7 to 9. Students stay home or drop out of school due to inequities in economic conditions, religion, child labour, abuse, among other factors.

The Ministry of Education is also moving swiftly to fill 500 teaching vacancies by January 2023. There are currently 178,962 public school students with 11,906 teachers (which provide a ratio of 15 students per teacher). This ratio varies across regions and at the three school levels: 17.5 students per teacher at primary; 14.1 at the secondary level, and 11.7 at the nursery level. The MoE plans to have all teachers trained (both in coastland and hinterland) by 2025. The status of teachers’ remuneration has recently been hinted upon by the President.

Recognizing the need to help immigrants like Venezuelans adjust to their new lives, MoE has established a Migrant Unit for this purpose. Venezuelans’ children at schools (nursery, primary, secondary) number 740 as of May 2022. Those in primary schools are being taught English, in an after-school class. The goal is to expand these classes by doubling their number to 30 in 2023. Appreciating diversity in the country’s education system is crucial to building the Presidents’ “One Guyana” society.

To complement MoE’s leadership role in educational and societal transformation, there are other agencies (both public and private) that are integral to this mission. There are, for example, the Port Mourant Oil and Gas Institute, and various Technical Vocational and Education Training (VET) programs for which the Board of Industrial Training (BIT) has oversight responsibility. Notwithstanding the challenges, Education Minister Priya Manickchand expresses her deep pleasure at the wonderful results Guyanese students have achieved at the 2022 CSEC and CAPE examinations. These accomplishments set the stage for greater things to come.

Regards,

Dr. Tara Singh