The Government Technical Institute (GTI) turned out 394 new graduates at its 62nd graduation ceremony on Thursday evening, marking a decline in the school’s pass rate.
Out of 678 enrolled students, 394 were successful, representing a 58% pass rate. This is down from last year’s 72% pass rate. 185 students were referred in one or two subjects while 95 students failed three or more subjects.
Despite these statistics, Chairman of the GTI/ Guyana Industrial Training Centre Board of Governors Norman McLean
opined that the school’s performance is the model for the future, not just in Guyana but throughout the Caribbean.
According to McLean, GTI is facing the problem of competency in Mathematics. “We have to focus in our Ministry of Education in the school system to ensure that people coming out of the system are competent in Maths,” he said.
He suggested the reintroduction of the remedial Mathematics programme, which was previously offered at the institution.
McLean went on to state that to see improvement in students, there is a need for better teachers. Towards this end, during the academic year, a number of teachers had been trained in areas such as competency-based education, work ethics, and education management.
Principal of GTI, Carl Benn was hopeful that the training will not go to waste and promised that GTI will continue to work on improving its staff’s performance through training. Benn noted that he is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Education Administration at the University of Guyana (UG) while two staff members graduated from UG last week. Within GTI, 14 staff members graduated at Thursday’s ceremony while nine others are currently enrolled.
At this year’s Education Ministry National Awards Ceremony, GTI students copped five out of eight Category 5 [Guyana Technical Education Ex-amination (GTEE)] awards.
The Science Depart-ment was adjudged the best performing department and was the recipient of the Principal’s trophy. The department gained a 74% overall performance in this year’s GTEE against 33% in 2012.
“The time has come when the world has recognised that technical education is necessary if we are to move further,” Melcita Bovell, Technical Coor-dinator of the Education Ministry, told the graduates. Bovell, who spoke in place of Minister of Education Priya Manickchand, added that the school has created persons who are capable of creating businesses of their own and becoming not just workers of tomorrow but managers of tomorrow as well.
Valedictorian Colin Quintyn encouraged fellow students to utilise, to the best of their abilities, the gifts they had been given and take pride in all that they done. “You do not need years, or complicated plans, or advanced degrees to accomplish good things,” he said. Quintyn is a graduate from the Building Department of GTI.
In a few months, the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) will be offered in Guyana. The CVQ will serve as a regional recommendation which will allow acceptance of certificates gained in Guyana in other Caricom nations. Accord-ing to Bovell, Guyana is one of the leading Caribbean countries in its readiness for the CVQ.
The graduates of Thursday’s ceremony will be able to use their certificates next year to be tested to uplift their CVQs.
