Dear Editor,
It is heartening to see parents beginning to speak out against the Ministry of Education’s unfortunate and brash decision to hold examinations from early in July 2020 as Guyana struggles to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. I encourage other parents to continue to make their concerns heard loudly for it is the health and safety of our families that are at stake.
The Sunday Stabroek editorial of 7th June, 2020 was an insightful one that correctly identified an issue at the heart of this debacle: the possibility of the families of both students and teachers being infected with the COVID- 19 virus as a result of the untimely re-opening of school for examination level students and the sitting of examinations. It is a risk that is too great for our nation to take.
For the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) examination, which my 11-year-old daughter is scheduled to write, the editorial also presented a sensible and practical solution. It is for the Ministry of Education to delay the sitting of the examination to a time when it is safer but which would still allow for schools to be reopened before January 2021. This may be achieved, as the editorial suggests, by working through the holidays and finding ways to speed up the marking of the Grade Six Assessment. I believe this is a practical solution that would address the concerns of students, teachers, parents and the Ministry of Education. It is my sincere hope that the Ministry would pursue this option.
We now live in an extraordinary time when a CNN report of 5th June, 2020 reminds us that “new cases of the novel coronavirus are rising faster than ever worldwide, at a rate of more than 100,000 a day over a seven-day average.” Our neighbouring Brazil has recorded the astoundingly grim figure of over 36,000 COVID-19 related deaths! We cannot allow the risk that the Ministry’s decision presents. In these extraordinary times, the Ministry must take a different approach.
If the Ministry does not listen to the pleas of parents, then we must consider taking legal action to stop the Ministry from exposing our children and teachers to this deadly virus.
Yours faithfully,
Mela Ganesh
