Eleven-year-old Dane Richards of Akawini Primary School in Pomeroon, Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) made history in his community at this year’s sitting of the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) when he secured 460 marks and landed a spot at Essequibo’s prestigious Anna Regina Multilateral School.
The elated student said he was proud of his achievement since he worked very hard, and was excited to attend the secondary school, though it was located on the Essequibo Coast miles away from his home. Akawini is an Amerindian village
Akawini Primary School’s top NGSA student Dane Richards
accessible by a creek that connects to the lower Pomeroon River. Most residents are small-scale loggers and miners.
Richards is from a combined class of 12 students from the Akawini Primary and Baracaro Annex who wrote the NGSA this year. Several of the students earned passes to secondary schools at Charity and Wakapao.
Class teacher Daniel Gildharie, who is one of two trained teachers at the school, said Richards’ achievement was motivation for the teaching staff, students and the entire community. He noted that the school feeding programme, which started last December; support of the village council and parents’ involvement have aided both students’ attendance and performance.
Gildharie returned to teach at Akawini last September after he completed a two-year primary education programme at the Cyril Potter College of Education at Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown.
Meanwhile, in the Upper Pomeroon, one student of the Jacklow Primary, Calvin Thakurdin, earned a spot at the St Joseph High in Georgetown with 498 marks, while six others were awarded places at the Anna Regina Multilateral School. They
Calvin Thakurdin of Jacklow Primary School gained a spot at St Joseph High
are Travis Cornelius, Brian Narine, Kelsie Williams, Annie Joy Phillips, Mariano Goocharan and Alicia Sulker. Other Grade Six students at Jacklow Primary earned passes to Charity and Wakapao Secondary Schools.
Headteacher Rajendra Pershad, who also taught the Grade Six class along with Demetria Alphonso, noted that the school has been seeing improved performance of its students over the years. He observed that overall, the students were poor at reading and the staff has developed several strategies to help address this challenge, including guided reading sessions.
He noted too that in hinterland communities such as Jacklow, attendance was often low as some parents were financially unable to send their children to school regularly. However, the school feeding programme has been impacting positively on such since it started at Jacklow last December.
“We currently have an attendance rate of 85 per cent which is a big improvement from the previous years and we are working constantly to increase it. However, when we look back at last year’s attendance, we noticed that 18 children were regularly absent from school, because they were unable to bring lunch…since the school feeding programme, we have noticed 16 of those children are present every day now,” Pershad stated.
The Headteacher further noted that most of the students were from single-parent homes or were growing up with grandparents and sometimes needed that extra motivation and guidance.
“We actually talk to the children a lot and tell them about the successes of past students who came right from Jacklow and who had some of the same challenges facing students now,” Pershad related. In riverine areas such as Jacklow, children usually paddle long distances to get to school even amidst the most adverse weather conditions.
Pershad emphasised that his school has received significant help from the Regional Administration which aided rehabilitation works, installed a solar panel and was now moving to repair the school’s stelling during the July-August holidays. The school is also hoping to get some help to upgrade its playground.
