The government will spend $251 million this year on its ongoing literacy drive, but poor test scores show that the programme has been failing students, an opposition MP has charged.
“If you go into schools, you will find many children who cannot read or write,” PNCR-1G MP Amna Ally told the National Assembly during the 2009 Budget debate on Tuesday night. In a forceful presentation, she commended the government on its planning for the education sector, but emphasised the need for proper management and good governance for successful implementation and real benefits to students. Ally’s recommendations were in light of what she described as the decay of the sector, as highlighted by the recent debacle that was the children’s Mashramani competition, the mass suspension of students of Tutorial Secondary School and the non-functional toilets at the Enmore Primary School.
In a rebuttal, Minister in the Minister of Education Dr. Desrey Fox stressed that quality education remains the government’s priority in the sector, where it has allocated $20.4 billion this year, comprising $3.6 billion for capital works and $16.8 billion for operational expenditure.
According to Ally, a lot of money has been ploughed into the education sector over the last three years targeting literacy and numeracy. This year, $251 million has been earmarked for the National Literacy Programme. But she said at a glance the results have been poor, especially in the hinterland areas which rank below the national level. She cited countrywide results for the National Grade 2, 4 and 6 assessments, noting that at each level the pass rate is between twenty and thirty percent. Ally declared, “If at the primary level, for English and Math, the percentage stands between twenty and thirty percent, you must tell us where have all the millions gone?”
At the secondary level, greater challenges emerge, she added, pulling statistics from the country’s performance last year at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations. Guyanese students, Ally explained, recorded less then fifty percent grades one to three passes in English A (27.9%), English B (37.21%), Geography (40.21%) and Mathematics (30.64%). Mathematics was the only subject that saw an improved performance -up from 23.94% in 2007 -but Ally said it is still not listed as stable, while the results in English A and English B had declined.
Ally also said there is need for senior staff members of the Ministry of Education to be given security of tenure, opining that the current number of “acting” positions gives the impression that the ministry is going to produce Hollywood actors. Among the acting posts are Chief Education Officer, Deputy Chief Education Officer, Assistant Chief Education Officer (Nursery, Primary and Secondary) and the Principal Education Officer (Georgetown). “If you are serious about education reform, you need more than actors,” she said. In this regard, she also drew the Assembly’s attention to the University of Guyana, which she said has around 100 vacancies, affecting major programmes.
Guyana is in the second year of the 2008-2013 National Education Strategic Plan. Ally, though supportive for the plan, lamented the fact that the government is lagging behind the timeframe for key goals, including improving English and Mathematics scores, CSEC pass rates, the tabling of the long-in-the-works Education Bill, the completion of training at the national, regional and local levels and the creation of a new Ministry website.
“I was wondering which country she was talking about,” Dr. Fox said, though sidestepping the major concerns raised about the management of the sector.
Though she admitted that no system is perfect, Dr. Fox trumpeted the available access to education, especially in the hinterland areas. But saying that access must not precede quality, she noted that the Ministry is moving away from homogenous programmes towards those that reflect the learning process of individuals. She also said equity and inclusive education are also priorities that guide the budgetary allocations, using school feeding programmes as an example. Dr. Fox added that while people like to talk about the deterioration of schools, it is more a reflection of wider societal changes.
