First Math Expo for primary schools held

The Education Department of Georgetown hosted its inaugural Mathematics Exposition and Fair for primary school pupils with the hope of pushing more of them to have an interest in that subject area.

The event commenced with a walk from the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) Hall on Woolford Avenue to the Queen’s College auditorium for the official programme.
District Education Officer Adrian Elgin explained that the main focus of the Mathematics Expo and Fair is to raise the level of awareness that Mathematics is not a subject that should be dreaded.
“We are trying to lay an impression that it is not as difficult as they say, as well as to build an awareness to let the world know that mathematics is not as difficult as they say it is. It is across the board children have a problem with mathematics; because I am responsible for the subject at the Primary level, I am working with them,” Elgin said.
“We have 28 schools, so they would have made projects, they would have made teaching materials, and it is there for when the children get there they will see what it is like. The concepts will be explained to them”, he added.

The District Education Officer further stated that teachers from those 28 schools participating in the event were tasked with ensuring that they make the exposition as fun and understandable as they could.
“They have games, they have teaching materials; so we have teachers at each of the booths, so that when the children get there, concepts will be explained to them. Each booth has one teacher from the school, who will be explaining the concepts to the students when they get there. This idea came from the Science Fair initiative, because I thought that we can have a Mathematics one.”
With regard to a ‘special needs’ school being included in the list of participating schools for the Mathematics Exposition and Fair, he added that even children who do not benefit from the regular classroom teachings on a daily basis need to be exposed to mathematics.