While assuring that all preparations have been made for the sitting of the National Grade Six Assessment on Wednesday and Thursday, the Ministry of Education yesterday announced that it would allow students the option of wearing casual clothing rather than their school uniforms.
In a press release, the Education Ministry said that NGSA candidates are not required to wear their uniforms and that casual but modest clothing could be worn instead. However, it specified that the clothing must also have little or no writing, pictures, and or diagrams that would give cause or contribute to any form of cheating.
In announcing policy changes for the sitting of the exams, the ministry said they are aimed at serving the best interest of students.
The assessments will be written on Wednesday, with English Paper One and Paper Two being written in the morning and Science Paper One and Paper Two in the afternoon, while on Thursday candidates will be writing Mathematics Paper One and Paper Two in the morning and Social Studies Paper One and Paper Two in the afternoon.
According to the ministry, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, regulations and guidelines have been established to ensure the safe and incident-free writing of the examinations. These measures include requirements for the sanitising and washing of hands by all before they enter examination buildings, the wearing of the recommended face mask, observing and maintaining social distancing at all times, and the cleaning and sanitizing of buildings and furniture.
In addition, the ministry said candidates will be allowed to leave the examination centres to have lunch but must return at least 15 minutes before the beginning of the next session. Candidates can take a bottle of water or suitable liquid to drink into the examination room once the bottle has no writing that can aid the student in the examination.
It also announced that there are 33 new examination centres spread across the eleven education districts where candidates will be writing the examination. The ministry has also established emergency centres that can accommodate those candidates who may have tested positive for COVID-19 or are in quarantine. This was done for the 2021 CSEC and CAPE examinations whereby COVID-19 positive candidates were accommodated and allowed to write their examinations in a separate building, the ministry noted.
Parents of Grade Six students who have tested positive or are in quarantine but are still able and wish to write the examination are asked to contact their school’s Head Teacher or indicate the same to the Department of Education in their region. Parents can also call 226-1237 to make the necessary arrangements.
Another addition to the administering of the assessment is that candidates who are 12 years and 7 months and older will not be penalized with respect to their raw scores as in previous years. “This category of candidates will have their raw scores standardized the same way as all other candidates. In addition, the individual subject scores for each candidate will be given to decimal places and their total score will be rounded to the nearest whole number”, the release said. The ministry explained that this is to ensure a more accurate reflection of each candidate’s performance.
All Grade Six students in the public education system have received an NGSA Care Package containing face masks, pencils, erasers, a sharpener, hand sanitizer and ruler, the ministry said. It also reminded that many platforms were created by the ministry to ensure students are prepared. Distribution of study packages containing social studies and science notes, worksheets for the four subjects, past papers from the last five years and 12 textbooks on the four subject areas of English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies, the launch of the Quiz Me Platform on the ministry’s website, the NGSA Booster Programme and airing of educational videos on the Guyana Learning Channel and uploaded to the Guyana Learning Channel’s YouTube channel were cited.
