The best practices to ensure safety during teaching is the biggest concern of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), Education Minister Priya Manickchand believes following a recent engagement ahead of tomorrow’s reopening of public schools.
As agreed in October, the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the GTU have started having monthly meetings to discuss ways to improve the education system nationwide. On Thursday the GTU and MOE held a virtual meeting, where they discussed the situation faced by teachers as they have been periodically heading out to schools prior to the Ministry’s involvement in this action.
Manickchand told this newspaper that during the last meeting, the Ministry and GTU further discussed the safety of teachers. “The union has been very clear to us, they are not against the reopening of the schools. They just want to make sure it’s done in a safe way.” She said.
The Minister said that because the GTU are stakeholders, the two had agreed to hold the meetings because of their combined concern for the safety of children and teachers, as well as the delivery of education at this time. She further added that teachers have been in schools on their own but now they have the support of the ministry through the care packages. Concerning the packages, she said that all ten administrative regions have received packages. Teachers who have been to school can uplift theirs while the students will uplift theirs as they head out.
As for the school vouchers, each child in the public school system will receive his or her voucher, but the first $75,000 worth of vouchers will be distributed to the secondary school students as they will be the first set to return.
Guided by instructions set by the MoE, students and teachers will be returning to schools for face-to-face learning as of tomorrow. Manickchand assured that all stakeholders have participated in this decision. The sessions will not be all day as schools were expected to create timetables which teachers and students will follow so as to get whatever work needs to be done completed and return to their homes.
Schools were virtually opened on September 14 and teaching, while it began for some after the March closure, was delivered through online classes, on-air educational programmes, and traditional workbooks. Since then the Ministry has found that the worksheet method was more effective given the challenges faced by internet connectivity, lack of devices, and power outages.
