Performance gap between hinterland, coastal students confirmed – CEO

NGSA results

…technology to be used as a solution

The performance of hinterland students did not match that of their coastal students which saw increased passes in the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) 2018.
At the results announcement ceremony on Thursday, the performance of the hinterland students was addressed by Chief Education Officer Marcel Hutson, who highlighted a number of recognised situations that is responsible for the low performance in the interior locations. He explained that the root cause of the problem is the quality of teachers which are present in the schools.
“One of the things that is affecting the hinterland schools has to do with the quality of teachers and we’ve recognised that, and so what we’ve started to do is satellite teachers training centres in the hinterland communities.”
According to Hutson, interventions were made to fix this problem by providing online training and the introduction of a Hinterland Improvement Project, which delivers training via satellites. A few months ago, a centre was commissioned in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) which provides training facilities for some 50 teachers.
According to Hutson, this region is considered as one of the poorest performing regions in Guyana. At this year’s examination, the highest score obtained was 477 marks which secured a spot at Kato Secondary.
“The other thing has to do with content and methodology so what we’re doing is exposing our teachers in the hinterland communities to a series of developmental sessions as it relates to that. We have procured a smart classroom… That has the propensity to reach the regions so what we’ve already done and continue to do is to develop a schedule where there will be sessions with children in the schools and also the teachers and even with education officers,” the Chief Education Officer stated.
With the teachers training under control, another problem factor is the journey and topography which needs to be covered for education officials to reach students of the hinterland communities. These communities are situated in areas which are not as easily accessible when compared to the coastal setting, which provides more opportunities to children.
“It’s not an easy thing to work in the hinterland communities. People do hard work to get to those communities. The topography and build of the land is not as easy as some persons think. In some areas, you have to go past some very dangerous animals like the black caiman and electric eel. It’s a work in progress.”
According to the Chief Executive Officer, the most successful way to bridge these gaps and eliminating the challenging factors can be done by the implementation of technological solutions.
“Technology is one of the ways that we will use to bridge that gap between the coast and the hinterland.”
Meanwhile, Education Minister Nicolette Henry also commented on the low performance of the hinterland region, relating that it is something of concern and the subject areas are also being modified as an emergency intervention.
“We have recruited persons to work particularly in the Hinterland region. We also mainstream the Mathematics intervention to employ some of the methodologies used in the emergency intervention across the other subject areas.” (Rupadai Seenaraine)