President David Granger lauded the top academic performers as “exemplars of excellence” of the high standards to which the country aspires, at the recently held Annual National Award Ceremony, at the National Cultural Centre (NCC).
According to a Ministry of the Presidency release, Granger said the awardees are testimony to what can be accomplished by harnessing the intellectual capabilities of all our people.
During the feature address the president called for the development of an education system that will “produce citizens of quality, and extend access to the information superhighway to boost the education of our young people” noting that it was the duty of the State to provide such, since the Constitution of Guyana determines that “every citizen has the right to free education, from nursery to university.”
Granger indicated that there are troubling inequalities within the country’s education system between the coastland and hinterland schools which was leading to a form of “educational apartheid. Our secondary education system is not universal. It is unequal. It is a rebuke to our belief of equality, inclusivity and meritocracy.” Noting that the each year more than half of the students who undertake the National Grade Six Assessment fail, he called for a reshaping of the education strategies in order to arrest this decline and produce qualified graduates with the necessary knowledge and skills to secure gainful employment and be competitive in the global market place.
The president suggested that as Guyana aims for Universal Secondary Education (USE) there are three foundational policies upon which the education system should be modified – every child needs to attend secondary school because education is the gateway out of poverty and the key to unlocking employment opportunities; every teacher must be a university graduate in order to provide quality education to their students; and every school has to be equipped with a functioning laboratory and library to reduce disparity among the institutions. These in turn would engender the advancement of human rights, social cohesion, improved health and personal gain.
Granger implored that in following years the quality of our education system should not be measured by the achievements of a few but assessed by the performance of all students.
