…Guyana academically prepared – Education Minister
Education Minister Priya Manickchand interacting with students before the start of exams on Monday
The sitting of the Caribbean Examination Council’s exams, that is the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination, commenced as of Monday.
Expected to last one month, thousands of students from across the country have ventured out to their schools under COVID-19 guidelines, to be tested across their respective subject areas.
COVID-19 measures are in effect during the CXC sittings
Education Minister Priya Manickchand would have checked-in with students prior to their sitting, where she noted that they are being tested in excess of 33 subjects. She noted that the decision taken last year to resume face-to-face learning for these senior classes will ensure that they succeed.
“I expect our children to do very well. We are one of the countries that took some bold decisions last year and brought our children back out. But not because we wanted to and not by ourselves. We listened to what our teachers, students and parents said they needed and we brought students out for face-to-face learning but with a caveat that any student who did not want to come did not have to come,” the Minister shared.
Despite the extant COVID-19 crisis, it was pointed out that students have been prepped academically in every way possible, and are on par with measures that were made in previous years.
A mother wishing her daughter good luck before the exams
“These children, while they are the first set of children and hopefully the only set, that will be writing CXC’s exams after a prolonged period of the pandemic, I believe they’re as prepared as they could be academically in these conditions. I don’t think we’re less prepared academically than any other year because of some of the decisions that we took.”
Going forward, the Minister said the pandemic has had its effect on students, especially on the phycological scale. She, however, placed high confidence in those students, and lauded teachers for returning to classrooms to complete the curriculum.
“I believe the country could live vicariously through this by seeing these children rise up from a really hard time and do well. And we need them to do well because Guyana’s thriving…I’m really looking forward to see what these kids will do…I want to specifically thank the Head Teachers, teachers who came out last year. In fact, it was teachers who told us that they needed to come out to be able to finish the curriculum and properly instruct their children…To those teachers that came out, you will see the rewards,” Manickchand pointed out.
Presently, the Education Ministry is assessing the impact made through online learning. The education official clarified that face-to-face instruction would always be superior, but they are seeking to ascertain whether blended learning is effective across the education system.
This year, it was announced by CXC that all exams would be administered in their original format. This includes Papers 1, 2 and SBA or Paper 3 for CSEC. This decision follows a fiasco last year, where the format was modified and hundreds of papers had to be reviewed after students received ungraded marks. In efforts to continually meet the needs of candidates and stakeholders, SBA requirements have been reduced by as much as 50 per cent in some subjects.
