Employees of the Guyana Oil Company Limited (Guyoil) were recently awarded for having completed the company’s first ever literacy programme which was conducted over a three-month period from April to June.
Guyoil Managing Director Badrie Persaud said the outcome was the culmination of about three years of effort. He revealed that this was not the first attempt at such an endeavour by the company, stating that some years back it had tried to institute such a programme in collaboration with the Guyana Technical Institute, but was unsuccessful largely due to the fact that class times would have clashed with employee working hours.
However, last year, after reading about a literacy program effectively executed by Sterling Products Ltd, the company’s determination to implement the programme was redoubled.
This time around, with the help of the National Literacy Unit of the Ministry of Education, it was finally able to implement the initiative, allowing seven employees to successfully complete the programme, three of whom received special awards for their exceptional performance during the course.
Receiving their certificates of participation yesterday were: Michelle Aaron -Pump Attendant, Marilyn Dowden-Lewis – Cashier (Participant with Best Attendance), Elizabeth Jackson – Pump Attendant, Kessa Morrison – Pump Attendant, Sharmain Nelson – Pump Attendant, Amanda Reets – Pump Attendant (Best Literacy Class Participation) and Trevalyn Wilson – Pump Attendant (Most Improved Participant).
It was noted that the programme in April began with 19 participants but most participants dropped out for various reasons.
Guyoil operates 7 service stations around Guyana, and retains approximately 165 employees to run these stations, 85% of which are pump attendants.
Persaud stated that most if not all of his employees who are pump attendants are academically disadvantaged meaning that they would have not attained a very high level of education. As a result, these positions carry very negative stigmas. These were but a few of the triggers for the initiation of the programme.
National Literacy Coordinator Murray Greenidge said that pre-test diagnostics done by specialists revealed that most of the participants lacked basic sentence construction skills and the ability to understand and execute instructions. They also scored poorly in areas such as basic listening, speaking and writing skills and subject sentence and verb agreement. These inefficiencies would undoubtedly have affected their ability to effectively function on the job.
However, by the end of the programme post test diagnostics showed that all successful participants demonstrated improved levels of performance and productivity and well as improvements in areas such as tolerance and understanding in the interaction with colleagues and with customers, qualities which are believed to be invaluable to improvement of customer care. There “was also a noticeable improvement of self awareness, self esteem and command of the English Language,” Greenidge said.
Speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Education, Chief Education Officer Olato Sam added that the programme would not just help the participants personally, but they could also use what they have learned to assist their children to attain higher levels of competency. He also stated that participants should not stop here, but should contemplate pursuing CXC and even university level qualification and challenged the company to contemplate setting up scholarship programmes as incentives.
Persaud replied that it was his wish that employees would now have the opportunity for upward mobility within the company. He disclosed his intentions to carry out the literacy programme on a quarterly basis, stating that the next batch of participants have already begun their training. In addition to literacy, he also revealed that his company has embarked on a computer literacy programme which commenced last year. “Participants will now be trained to effectively use computers since many of the tasks are becoming increasingly computerized,” he said.
Greenidge said the Literacy Unit would be more than happy to continue to assist the company in its literacy development, stating that it has a responsibility to ensure the provision of literacy empowerment to all sectors of society. He added that after this initiative he hopes “Guyoil and the National Literacy Unit are now linked for life”.
