According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) press release, the minister said this is in accordance with the Education Act and one of the ministry’s aims, which is to ensure that quality education is delivered at all levels. In his feature address at a recent two-day NAC workshop at the National Centre for Education Resource Development, Baksh observed that a number of private providers including from nursing, medical institutions, business and from skills development interests did not attend the workshop.
“I am urging those institutions to come forward; the time is running out…” He said he would ask the NAC to move against those who do not come forward to register. Failure to comply by July 31, he said would see application of “the law that was laid down in the National Accreditation Council Act 2004 in which there are penalties for not complying….”
Baksh said this involved the issue of quality and cited the Education Ministry’s Strategic Plan (2008-2013) that speaks about providing quality education. “At this point in time at the primary and secondary levels we must establish fair benchmarks… toward which we are working… it will not happen overnight, but we do have to set the goal and we are hoping to get there, also for the technical institutes if I make a distinction between higher education and post-secondary education so to speak,” he said.
The minister also said technical institutions have done a lot of work through the Technical Secretariat Council to ensure that standards are laid down and the ensuing documentation will be compressed into one paper for circulation to all of the institutes. Training for assessors is also ongoing to visit both public and private institutions, to ensure that they move toward certain standards and to ensure that Guyana is recognised by Caricom.
Baksh said government has made it clear to the University of Guyana (UG) the need for quality assurance. He said too under the stewardship of the current vice chancellor, the process has started with the expertise of personnel from the University of the West Indies and they are working towards ensuring that quality assurance mechanism is set up at the institution.
According to GINA, there are currently 150 providers of different types of educational services; 85 institutions offer non tertiary educational services.
As regards the Cyril Potter College of Education, Baksh said it had surpassed the targeted intake under the strategic plan last year; it doubled. “We are going to move to upgrade the teacher educators. Out of 52 teacher educators only five have post-graduate degrees as such government is putting a mechanism in place that will allow persons to upgrade their qualifications to a Master’s Degree in Education for teacher educators.”
At UG most of the lecturers hold first degrees and few hold PhDs. In the light of this government is moving towards introducing incentive schemes to train and upgrade staff at the institution. Meanwhile, Baksh said he is pleased to note that UG’s Medical school has been accredited. He noted too that plans are in train to establish the Caribbean Accreditation Agency for education and training with three countries already signed on: Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and St Kitts. He said he wants to advance the case for Guyana to be a signatory of that body. “When I look at the powers and functions of that agency vis-à-vis the powers and functions of our national accreditation council it harmonises to a large extent,” he added.
Baksh explained that while private providers must be given opportunities to improve, government cannot wait forever. “We have the accreditation council dealing with post secondary institutions and higher education institutions and the ministry itself. And we will establish a specialized unit to deal with those at the nursery, primary, secondary, low post secondary levels …the new education legislation will provide for the granting of licences or permits to private providers at that level…. to ensure certain quality standards are met,” he said. The minister appealed to those institutions to put their houses in order so that when assessments are made, they are not found wanting.
Chairman of the National Accreditation Council Khemraj Rai indicated that worldwide accreditation is important and steps are being taken to achieve acceptable accreditation standards.
Additionally, Executive Director of the University Council of Jamaica Dr Ethley London emphasised the need for quality assurance and accreditation, since student enrolment and increased demand for higher education have resulted in the establishment of universities offering a diversity of programmes and the option to study online. She said some of these institutions may not be accredited and this results in students not getting value for money.
