Thirty-two persons who graduated from the National Volunteer Teachers’ Programme last Friday will be deployed to eight hinterland and riverain schools and communities for a one-year period, commencing from the new school year in September, the Government Information Agency (GINA) reported. More than 600 students would benefit, the agency said in a release issued last week.
In addition to academic study, the volunteers who did three weeks of intense training, were involved in extra-curricular activities, which is expected to benefit communities as well.
Present at the ceremony held at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), were Minister of Education Shaik Baksh, Acting Chief Education Officer Roopnarine Tewari, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) Programme Manager Tara Persaud and Acting Chief Education Officer (Secondary) Melcita Bovell, among others.
Minister Baksh said that the volunteer programme was another step by the Ministry of Education to improve the quality of education in hinterland and riverain areas.
VSO had been instrumental in helping to stage the programme, GINA stated.
Baksh advised the volunteers to take their mission seriously, noting that a booklet about volunteerism will soon be distributed to each regional administration, head teachers and communities, in an effort to bring about awareness.
“We not only want the urban areas to have an opportunity to receive education but every inch of the country; we want hinterland students to receive quality education as well.
Quality teacher equals quality education,” Baksh was quoted by GINA as saying.
He said that the ministry was working to have an even distribution of teachers around the country and he urged the volunteers to upgrade their qualifications and return to the teachers’ training college and become trained teachers.
Acting Chief Education Officer Tewari said he was grateful for the role the volunteers would be playing and commended them for taking up the rigorous training. He told the volunteers that they would be supported by the ministry and other organizations, which would be visiting the areas where they would be deployed to ensure that they were supervised by senior personnel and head teachers of the respective schools and communities.
VSO Programme Mana-ger Persaud noted that this year the programme was the beneficiary of the strongest collaboration between the ministry, Youth Challenge Guyana and VSO, and hoped this would have a greater impact compared to past years.
She added that the volunteers would be deployed to eight of the ten administrative regions and over 600 students would be able to benefit from quality education, GINA stated.
