Dear Editor,
The Minister of Education’s suggestion to reexamine the use of the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) as a high school placement test is fresh, new thinking that bodes well for the future of education reform. The NGSA is probably the root cause of many ills of our current education system. For decades, our education system, as designed and perpetuated by successive post-Independence governments, is inherently inequitable. Our placement of students in high schools is based on a system that slots and stratifies children based on their test scores at the NGSA into schools of varying grades and qualities. The system now places the lowest scoring students in the lowest graded schools – an educational malpractice. I know our Constitution does not agree with such an iniquitous and inequitable system.
The biggest problem facing education in Guyana is the failure of our governments to create an equitable system of education in which all schools are schools of quality and excellence. Minister Manickchand can be the Minister to take us to the Promised Land of Equity, as she usually pursues her Ministry’s goals with the utmost zeal. The NGSA had become a “drill and kill” exam with extra lessons scams that left children from low-income and rural families behind, and favoring the well to do and urban areas. In the 21st century, an inherently unequal system is not only an abomination, it goes against the tenets of a fair and democratic society. We need the Ministry to unveil some kind of “A Decade of Equity and Excellence in Education Plan.” There is no current education plan. The Plan expired under the last government and they did not bother to create a new plan. Going forward, removing inequities in the system should be the number one priority in education. The COVID pandemic revealed the pervasive inequities when online learning could not be effective because of the rural-urban divide in relation to technology and Internet access, access to TV and radio services, training and readiness of staff and schools to deploy online learning, etc. The Ministry recently rolled out a half a dozen or so “smart classrooms,” meaning the rest are “dumb classrooms.” This must change in a hurry.
In each school, in every region, we need to have equity in subjects taught at each high school for CSEC and CAPE, comparable quality of facilities – computer labs, other school technology such as copiers and printers, classrooms, libraries, science labs, lunch rooms, number of graduate teachers, number of trained teachers, availability of textbooks and workbooks, school supplies, Internet access, availability of clubs and societies, child nutrition programmes, gyms, sports opportunities, support services such as social workers and counselors, functioning School Boards, access to water and electricity, etc. In the mix of curriculum reforms, we can have special focus schools and “Magnet” Schools such as Oil and Gas Academies, High Tech High Schools, curriculum pathways to law/medicine/engineering, and programmes to address needs of the new oil and gas economy and the related local content opportunities. So let’s help the Minister figure out the needed educational reforms and the redesign of education in Guyana.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jerry Jailall
Author and Education Consultant