As the Ministry of Education works to ensure all children living in Guyana have access to high quality education, the Education Ministry to date has enrolled over 4,000 migrant students into the public education system, with its Migrant Education Support Unit (MESU), which is a part of the Ministry of Education.
The students come from several communities across Guyana.
This was revealed by Chief Education Officer (CEO) Saddam Hussain last week during the Education Ministry’s End of Year press conference.
Hussain highlighted that the MESU works to integrate migrant students into the public school system.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand
“The Ministry of Education under the school support services has a unit called the migrant unit, we are one of the few Ministries in the Caribbean that actually has such a unit. We have in our database a little bit more than 4,000 migrant students registered,” he noted.
The CEO added that in a bid to make enrollment easy for migrant learners, key documents such as birth certificates are not required when registering a child into the public education system.
“We have continued to register students as long as they make themselves available to the school, or if we find these students within communities. We are one of the few countries as well who do not require any kind of documentation, so a migrant student does not have to get a birth certificate. They simply turn up to a school close to where they live and we enroll them into that school,” he explained.
When enrolled, the CEO disclosed, the students also have access to all benefits, such as free learning materials and cash grants.
However, Hussain disclosed that the language barrier has been a notable challenge when dealing with migrant learners.
In this regard, Hussain noted that the Ministry has rolled out several initiatives geared towards addressing this issue.
“What we have found is that there is a language issue, and so currently we have more than forty afterschool classes where these migrant students are being taught English as a second language; we also have a new curriculum that caters for migrant students…We have gone so far that our Deputy Chief of Exams, our Examination Unit also prepares the exam in Spanish for the migrant students, but there is a lot more to be done,” the CEO added.
Also present at the event was Education Minister Priya Manickchand, who highlighted that despite these challenges, migrant students have been performing exceptionally well at National and Regional examinations.
“We have seen students from that migrant population topping at our National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), topping at CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate), topping at the University of Guyana (UG), topping at the Georgetown Technical Institute (GTI), and so I like to see people, as human beings and particularly children. And that’s how we treat them in the school system,” she declared.
Meanwhile, last year, the MESU extended its English as a Second Language (ESL) summer classes for migrant learners, for an additional two weeks.
This initiative was aimed at learners in Regions One, Two, Three, Four, Seven and Nine.
These classes are designed to enhance English language skills through fun and interactive activities.
Additionally, the MESU launched its first ever “ESL Adventure Camp,”
Moreover, as a mitigating response to eliminate the language barriers, the Ministry of Education introduced ESL training for teachers.
This training was done to equip teachers with the requisite skills to support migrant learners and to provide linguistic support to returning Guyanese, Venezuelan and indigenous children through ESL classes, to aid their integration into the local education system.
