Education Ministry looking to diversify secondary education model – Manickchand

In enabling students to find a niche or develop existing skills that can lead to careers, the Education Ministry is looking at ways to diversify the current education model at the secondary level.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand recently explained that diversifying education will provide a medium for students to focus on their interests. Broadening the scope of their overall development beyond just education, she added, can reduce the number of dropouts in the school system.

“I am happy to say that we’re working aggressively on making sure that children who have different interests and talents find a comfortable pathway in high school. We’re looking at a more diverse secondary education in an effort to cater more to our children but also to lose less children in the secondary school. We believe strongly that we are going to see results in that,” Manickchand expressed.
The new school year has just commenced and the Minister outlined that absenteeism is being addressed. Students who wrote the National Grade Six Assessment will commence their secondary education on October 3, but she pointed out that the Ministry will also place those children who did not write the exams.
“For me, if one child is absent, it is one child too many. We’re actually actively pursuing with different partners, the pathway to find each of these children. We’re going after every child, whether they wrote the exam or not, to be able to place them into a secondary school.”
Until NGSA students commence the new school year, the Ministry has provided worksheets and video material online for them to prepare.
Meanwhile, she reiterated that education and Guyana’s quality of education is still of paramount importance, now with the agenda of having every teacher trained. It was pointed out that there is a direct correlation between good output and trained educators, and the Ministry is looking in regions where there needs to be a turnaround.
Minister Manickchand underscored, “Linden has 100 per cent and more trained teachers and you see the children performing better. We see a direct correlation between trained teachers and good student output. This year, we’ve seen the most number of teachers from Region Eight coming to do the Associate’s Degree in Education and we are accommodating them at the Cyril Potter College of Education.”
She added, “Once those teachers are trained and go back in, you will see a difference in student output. We don’t want to wait until the teachers are trained and sent back in so we’re examining other means of getting trained teachers into the classroom.” (G12)