Yarrowkabra Nursery gets major expansion, Swan Nursery commissioned

In a major push to ensure equitable access to early childhood education, the Government of Guyana on Thursday commissioned the new Swan Nursery School and unveiled a newly completed classroom block at the Yarrowkabra Nursery School, both located along the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.

These developments form part of a sweeping national programme by the Ministry of Education to improve infrastructure and expand access to nursery-level education across the country. Over the past four and a half years, the Government has built 54 brand-new nursery schools, reconstructed 13 and significantly extended another 39. At Yarrowkabra, the newly added six-classroom block is expected to ease overcrowding and better serve the growing number of learners in the community. “If you speak to your head teacher or any of your teachers, you will find out that we were trying to hold eight classes in this building with 140 children,” Education Minister Priya Manickchand shared at the simple yet significant commissioning ceremony. “Eight classes in this building sounds impossible… But the teacher said they would come outside, they would hold class outside. And that’s not a way that we want our children to live.”
The Minister noted that the Government’s philosophy is rooted in the understanding that “wherever you put a school down, children will go.” She explained that the growth of the education infrastructure at Yarrowkabra, from nursery to secondary has already resulted in increased enrolment and community engagement. Manickchand described the country’s nursery programme as a strategic blend of infrastructure, curriculum reform and teacher training. “While we have seen untrained teachers do amazing work, it is more likely that your children will get a solid education if the person standing in front of their classroom is a person who went to school and learned how to teach,” she stated.

Between 2020 and 2025, the Ministry moved the percentage of trained teachers in Guyana from 63 per cent to 98 per cent and increased the total number of teachers from under 7,000 to nearly 15,000. The Minister also touched on the upcoming launch of a national literacy programme aimed at ensuring that every child can read and write by Grade Four.
“We are intervening even as you are in the school. Or you already went over to secondary and couldn’t read. We’re intervening at the secondary level also to make sure that no Guyanese child ever leaves the school system again within the next two years being unable to read and write.”
At the newly commissioned Swan Nursery School, Manickchand recalled how education delivery had to be improvised during the pandemic, with classes held outdoors and worksheets distributed to students due to a lack of internet access.
“While the Caribbean and the world were talking about going online… we knew for places like Swan, places like Kuru Kuru… we would have problems going online because there was no internet connectivity,” she explained. “Or if people could get internet connectivity, they didn’t have devices. Or if they had devices, they had nobody to stay home and supervise children.”

Swan’s development as a formal community was another focal point of the Minister’s remarks. She noted that the area grew organically through migration and farming and is now being supported with vital infrastructure.
“A few years ago… this wasn’t even a community. People started migrating from different regions… and next thing you know, you have a community that’s evolving. And that’s where a responsible Government reacts.”
The new Swan Nursery School follows the earlier establishment of the Swan Primary School, an addition the community had long requested. According to the Minister, this was done to reduce the long walking distance to other schools and to foster a seamless transition from nursery to primary.
At Swan, the four nursery teachers, two trained and two in training, have a class size of just 10 students per teacher, well below the national standard of 15. Manickchand urged them to use this advantage to deliver high-quality, personalised instruction. Parents, too, were reminded of their vital role in the success of the education system.
“To bring in the children here at nine o’clock in the morning when the school starts at 8:30 is to make them lose half an hour every single day… and that’s your responsibility,” she asserted. “We could bring the trained teachers, but we can’t come into your home and wake them up and comb their hair and bring them to school. That’s still your job.”
She also praised the presence of fathers at the event. “Too often somehow or the other, y’all treat this school thing as though it’s a mother thing… So, to the daddies who are here, I want to congratulate you for being models in your community.”
Both ceremonies ended with heartfelt wishes from the Minister.
“May every child who walks into these classrooms walk in and be safe, be blessed, and come out with more knowledge than they had,” she said at Yarrowkabra. A similar blessing was offered at Swan: “May every teacher who comes into these classrooms be inspired to do their very best every single day… and may you thrive in your individual lives.”
The expansion of Yarrowkabra and the commissioning of the Swan Nursery School reflect the Government’s larger goal of transforming access to education, from the nursery level and beyond, ensuring that no child, regardless of location or circumstance, is left behind.