Dear Editor,
Thank you for your continued interest in education and your commitment to continuously explore issues in your editorials.
I believe it is especially important for us in this precarious period of this pandemic to be careful in our messages and accurate in our representations when the education of hundreds of thousands and consequently, their future, are threatened.
I believe the Ministry and its officers have a greater responsibility in this time to represent the truth in all it does.
It was for this very reason that we believed it was necessary to immediately, after a surprise and most unexpected protest, host a press conference where probing questions could be asked and represent factually what the relationship with the Guyana Teachers’ Union has been.
I maintain it had been robustly healthy and we will work hard to stop this from changing. We do not intend to try this matter in the public domain and as such, have invited the Union to meet with us on Thursday, July 29, 2021, or another date of mutual convenience.
In the meanwhile, I wish to correct what must be an inadvertent misrepresentation that appeared in your editorial of Friday, July 23, 2021, where your commentary suggests that the representation of the Union that the Ministry failed to consult with the union regarding the National Grade Six Assessment is to be believed.
As a matter of fact, on January 14, 2021, the Ministry and the GTU held what has become a monthly meeting. And on that date, a lengthy discussion was had on the possible modality and dates for NGSA where GTU put forward three options:
1. Learners should repeat the school year 2020-2021, thus NGSA will be written in 2022
2. The school year 2020-2021 should be extended to four terms. In this arrangement, learners will sit the exams in November during the Christmas term of 2021
3. The use of the scores attained from the Grades 2 and 4 assessments, along with a Paper One NGSA (Examinations).
The Ministry also presented what parents and teachers wanted based on repeated consultations between the parties at which consultations several GTU executive members were present. The GTU did not object and the meeting agreed to the proposed idea of testing learners with a Paper l and 2 exam up to Grade 5 curricula.
The date for the NGSA was asked for and suggested by the NGSA teachers. Several polls were taken during our several consultations with teachers and they preferred the dates 4th and 5th August 2021, rather than later in the month which was the preference of parents. The Ministry agreed to do as the teachers asked. The Union was always aware of this date. It was never raised with us that this was a problem from the perspective of the Union, either formally or informally.
I thought it was important that your readers know of these details. I have never, in all my years as an educator, sat so frequently with parents and teachers as collectives in the last months during this pandemic. We have met regarding NGSA, CSEC, CAPE, Nursery education etc. In the Ministry, we were keen on making sure the decisions we took in this period were workable and would be meaningful to our learners.
Sincerely,
Dr Marcel Hutson
Chief Education Officer
Ministry of Education
