Issues and challenges in the new academic year (Cont’d)
Guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and in keeping with Articles 28 and 29, UNICEF-Guyana advocates for and facilitates education as a right, and uses education to support results in health, nutrition and protection for the realization of other rights. The education programme facilitated by UNICEF Guyana focuses on the whole child and addresses barriers and constraints in programming for results in education.
In its Programme of Cooperation with the Government of Guyana (usually agreed to and operationalized over a five-year cycle), interventions in the education process are planned with and implemented by officers in the Ministry of Education and supported by other ministries and NGOs. Analyses of the situation of children are reviewed together with the goals of education identified in the Education Strategic Plan after which specific goals are set. With emphasis on Early Childhood Development, Basic Quality Education and Gender Equality and Expanded Learning Opportunities in Secondary Schools, UNICEF’s education response is wide ranging and specifically aims at parenting education; strengthening the capacities of teacher and parents for the support to student participation in schools; providing distance learning for unqualified teachers in the hinterland and riverain areas and supporting satellite learning/resource centres in hinterland communities; sustained programming in water and sanitation facilities and hygiene education for schools; technical and vocational training in secondary schools emphasizing non-traditional skills training for girls; consolidating and infusing strategies for Health and Family Life Education (HFLE). The current programme cycle focuses on the age groups described below.
For the age range birth to age 3, quality programming for Early Childhood Educa-tion
including readiness skills is being advanced. The major task is developing policy, legislation and standardized training for practitioners in Day Care Centres and Play Groups which now operate in an ad hoc manner and parent education in good nutrition practices and safe motherhood.
Programming for access, quality, gender equality, active learning and successful completion, and capacity development in formal schools and alternative learning centres is seen as critical in the five to ten age groups. In this regard, UNICEF helps schools prepare to receive children and support their learning in what is termed “Child Friendly Schools (CFS)”. The CFS is considered in Guyana as an environment where children’s rights and responsibilities are respected and practiced in gender sensitive schools that are healthy and danger free and where learning is fun. It encapsulates active and cooperative learning; warm and friendly teachers; innovative methodologies; group identity and personal dignity; student governance and healthy self concepts and self esteem. Parents are empowered to support children’s learning and to plan together with teachers for better programming. Regions Two and Six are the lead regions in this regard. Teachers are supported through on the job training and in live-in sessions in strategies for active child participation and in the early detection of children with special needs. The child friendly teaching concept has been adopted by the Ministry of Education in its strategic plan in order to ensure that all children in Guyana have access to effective learning. This is being done in partnership with the World Bank under the Education for All/Fast Track Initiative (EFA/FTI).
Post-primary aged children and adolescents are addressed by secondary schooling and non-formal education/training outside schools, with priority on information, knowledge and values to protect and equip this age-group for appropriate roles in society, e.g. through Life Skills education and use of mass media. UNICEF-Guyana’s thrust over the next two years is to enhance the learning process in the secondary departments in the primary schools commonly referred to as the “Primary Tops”. Teachers in these schools are exposed to short live-in training activities. Additionally, an audit of the situation of the “primary tops” will give direction to the upgrade of the physical facilities and technical skills and capacities in these learning environments. Exposure to various types of information communication technology (ICT) initiatives is to begin in the new academic year. A major concept is the “connecting classrooms initiative,” a tool which will use the internet to connect multiple students and classrooms in a virtual way to seek information, interrogate issues, stimulate discussions, engage in complex problem solving, and collaborate with peers. It sets out to improve participation, performance, coaching and mentoring for students, teachers, parents and interested public which can enable young people to develop the skills and create opportunities to act as agents of positive social change.
With the Core Commitments for Children (CCCs) as its rule of thumb for emergencies, UNICEF has a strong track record in education in emergencies. The Guyana office gave and continues to give support to the upgrade of schools in the most vulnerable areas for flooding; capacity building to children, teachers and parents in Emergency Pre-paredness and Response and in the understanding and establishment of Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crisis and Early Reconstruction. For example, UNICEF-Guyana ensured that all government-manned shelters in the floods of 2005 and 2006, were made child friendly complete with education programming for all children and, with an additional expenditure of US$120,000, facilitated the return to clean, safe schools. In 2008, the office helped the ministry in its response to the two massacres in Lusignan and Bartica through the training of teachers in psycho-social support and trauma counselling to both children and their parents. This is now entrenched in the work programme through to 2010. UNICEF-Guyana is now a reliable front line agency for education in emergencies, and it will continue to be a First Responder by improving the preparedness and capacity to provide a surge of appropriate expertise within the ministry. The critical support here is in policy development.
There are still challenges to overcome, chief among them being the inclusiveness of children with disabilities, developmental lags; language barriers; the child as head of house-hold in the mainstream of the education process. Rugged terrain, disperse/isolated communities, high transportation costs; environmental conditions threaten the equality in access and quality programmes offered to children and sometimes stymie effective coaching, supervision and monitoring and evaluation for both UNICEF and the ministry. Comprehensive teacher training and other support systems still need to be distilled.
On average UNICEF commits US$120, 000 per year to the ministry to facilitate its regular programming. Technical assistance to the ministry is continuous and emphasizes policy development, leveraging resources, identifying best practices and contributing to networking among and across donors, developing partnerships – both traditional and non-traditional for ensuring better results for children. Collaboration with key partners such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the UK Department for International Develop and the European Union has been quite effective.
The supportive partners to the ministry are main the Ministries of Health, Amer-indian Affairs, Labour, Human Services and Social Security, the Georgetown Municipal Day Care Services, the National Commis-sion on Disability, the School of Education, University of Guyana and the Community Based Rehabilitation Programme.
