Nationwide literacy reform to revolutionise reading skills – Education Minister

A nationwide literacy reform programme will be implemented across all levels of the education system, introducing new resources, revised timetables, and targeted intervention strategies aimed at improving reading skills from the earliest years through to secondary school.
At the nursery level, all pupils will now receive structured daily foundational literacy instruction. As part of this effort, the Adventures with Letters and Songs Teacher’s Edition and the revised Roraima Reader Series will be introduced to support explicit phonics teaching.
Dedicated phonics workbook sessions will be formally added to timetables, with the first set of new materials expected to be rolled out in 2025, followed by additional resources in the future.
Group story time sessions will also be restructured to incorporate shared and guided reading, as well as writing activities, using levelled and decodable readers to ensure pupils progress at an age-appropriate pace.
At the primary level, the updated timetables will include 15 minutes of daily phonics and spelling instruction for all classes, guided by the Adventures with Letters and Songs learner’s guide.
The Atlantic Reader Series has been officially adopted as the main reading resource for students. Literacy Hour and Literacy Studies periods will be redesigned to address all five pillars of reading – phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension – ensuring a more holistic approach to literacy development.
A key component of the reform is the launch of the BRITE (Building Reading Independence Through Engagement) intervention programme, which will specifically target students reading below grade level, starting from Grade Two.
At the secondary level, the BRITE programme will be expanded to cater to struggling readers in higher grades. Specialised literacy modules, along with detailed instructor manuals, will be provided to teachers, enabling them to deliver targeted support. The aim is to ensure that students who have fallen behind in earlier stages can still achieve functional literacy by the time they graduate.

Phased rollouts
The initiative is being rolled out in phases, with teacher training, curriculum adjustments, and classroom resource distribution already underway in several pilot regions.
According to the Education Ministry, the reforms are based on both local assessments and international literacy benchmarks, with the ultimate goal of significantly reducing the number of students leaving school without adequate reading skills.
Officials have indicated that the implementation will be closely monitored, with regular evaluations to measure progress and make adjustments where necessary. The full impact of the reforms is expected to be evident within the next three years.
Speaking at the launch of the National Literacy Programme, Education Minister Priya Manickchand announced that, starting September, all primary school students across Guyana will receive workbooks in Mathematics, English, Social Studies, and Science – an initiative separate from the programme.
She explained that the initiative would ease the workload for teachers while providing uniform access to materials for students.
“Teachers will no longer have to copy lessons on the board for children to write in their books. Now, everyone will simply turn to the same page in their workbook and work together,” she said.

Addressing challenges
Manickchand stressed that the National Literacy Programme is designed to address a wide range of challenges — from children entering the system without meeting literacy benchmarks, to students already in nursery, primary, or secondary school who are still unable to read at their age-appropriate level, and even those who have left school without being literate.
“It’s a collection of programmes aimed at resolving these issues within four to five years, and I have no doubt it will work,” she asserted.
Meanwhile, the Minister underscored the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach, involving parents, teachers, children, the literacy department, and other partners. She also called for accountability within the system, questioning how some students reach Grade Six unable to write a single word at the national examination.
“This, my friends, is the game changer in the education system. The literacy programmes, collectively, is the game changer, along with trained teachers, along with schools, along with support for families. This is the game changer in the education system and so we are asking for stakeholder support. We’re asking for stakeholder support; the Union has to buy into this.”