– extracurricular activities, discipline in schools among key focus areas
Stakeholders within the Education Ministry over the past week have engaged in a series of high-level meetings to plan the way forward for education delivery for 2017.
Education Minister, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine
This comes against the backdrop of a $43.1 billion allocation in this year’s National Budget.
The meetings, held at the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD), started on Tuesday and would conclude today. They have seen the involvement of officers from the nine programmes in the Ministry: Policy Development and Administration; Training and Development (CPCE, Distance Education and Allied Arts); Nursery Education; Primary Education; Secondary Education; Post-Secondary/Tertiary Education; Cultural Preservation and Conservation; Youth; and Sport respectively.
The Ministry, in a recent statement, noted that the meetings were geared at highlighting the policy directives from Education Minister, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine and Junior Education Minister Nicolette Henry which are “intended to guide the work plan and performance for 2017”.
According to the Education Minister, there is need for “deeper focus” to be placed on ensuring that there is inclusion of extracurricular activities, such as sports, physical education and music, in the academic curriculum.
Dr Roopnaraine also highlighted the need for discipline in schools to be addressed, noting that the Welfare Unit has to be strengthened in order to “address modern means of carrying out discipline in schools”.
“We are well on the way to taking education in the direction needed,” the Minister posited.
He also called for the “invigoration” of the Parent-Teachers Association (PTA) movement, stressing that combined efforts by parents and teachers were essential in ensuring that the students’ education remained intact.
Meanwhile, Minister Henry noted that the meetings sought to “ensure alignment of programme activities across all programmes; preparation and synchronisation of 2017 work plans in keeping with the 2017 Budget allocations”.
She also observed the importance of improving sector performance, highlighting the need for frequent reporting, evaluation and monitoring.
Among the objectives of the meetings were having an approved calendar of activities; a work-plan in keeping with the programme performance statement; a review of all procurement plans to ensure timely procurement of goods and services to support the programme activities and the submission of the cash flow statements to ensure timely release of funds to support the payment of goods and services to aid the work of the entire Ministry.
