Education Ministry to launch teacher appraisals, school report cards, rankings to tackle institutional gaps

The Education Ministry is preparing to roll out a teacher appraisal system, national school report cards and school rankings as part of a broader push to strengthen quality, accountability and leadership across Guyana’s education system.

The initiatives, expected to be launched over the coming weeks, were outlined by Chief Education Officer (CEO) Saddam Hussain on Monday, as he acknowledged that while the past five years focused heavily on expanding access, the next phase of education reform must prioritise performance, leadership and measurable outcomes. One of the most significant measures to be reintroduced is the appraisal of teachers, which has been absent from the system for more than five years.
According to the CEO, the renewed appraisal framework will form part of a wider accountability structure designed to assess actual performance, rather than simply administrative compliance. “For the next five years, the emphasis definitely has to be on quality that we get within those schools. And of course, accountability. Again, it has to be quality and accountability…and it would be remiss of us to have report cards for schools, if we don’t have report cards also for the departments of education. And so this must also happen. In addition, you will see the Ministry of Education ranking the schools, ranking primary and secondary schools across the country,” he said. “So when there is a clamor for a particular school, then it’s based on the ranking and not necessarily what we think the good schools are. You will also see very shortly the launch of the CPD (Continuous Professional Development) policy, the continuous professional development policy for all teachers,” the CEO said. Further strengthening transparency, the MOE will begin ranking primary and secondary schools nationwide, a move intended to replace perception-based assumptions with data-driven decision-making.

Leadership challenges
The CEO was candid in acknowledging longstanding leadership challenges within the education system, describing a culture where administrative record-keeping has sometimes taken precedence over active school leadership. “We are tired of going to schools and hearing that teachers are not talking to each other. Teachers are not talking to parents. Teachers are not talking to the community. And so we hope that the training that is provided here will remove those kinds of issues. How do we get parents involved? How do we make the school appealing? How do we make the school appealing to parents?… I think what has happened is that the Ministry’s previous system of looking at certain things, looking at records rather than actual performance, have made our leaders into what we call in common parlance paper tigers. And so, what you have happening is that leadership is sometimes missing from the school itself,” he explained. Earlier this year, it was revealed that about 30 to 40 per cent of the 14,000 teachers across the country are absent daily from classrooms. Back in September, Minister of Education Sonia Parag revealed that during impromptu school visits to schools, she observed teacher absenteeism that has left students without guidance. Following this observation, the Minister has underscored the urgent need for greater accountability among teachers.