Minister of Education Priya Manickchand at the opening of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) 2nd Triennial Delegates Conference on Wednesday promised that teachers will find no resistance from the ministry on sensible and practical positions.
The conference is being held under the theme “Enhancing New Education Perspectives in a Pandemic” and concludes today.
“Your voice will not find resistance in the Ministry of Education, where it is practical, where it is sensible and where it is impartial. That voice must be the amalgamation and reflection of the highly diverse and sometimes contrasting ideas and desires of our teaching force,” Manickchand was quoted by a Ministry of Education statement as saying during her address.
According to the statement, the Minister told the GTU that it is vital that it is perceived as being balanced, unbiased and the ultimate defender of the rights of all teachers. She added that the Union must stay resolute in its desire to be the impartial intermediary that teachers need and deserve while resisting being “swayed by the objectives and agendas of desperate groups within society.”
The Education Minister told the Union it is on this premise that its relevance, evolution and eventual success rests.
Manickchand reiterated her commitment to working with the GTU to advance the overall standing of teachers as a means of improving the education system. She said that currently, over 2500 teachers are beneficiaries of scholarships through the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) pursuing bachelor’s degrees, masters, PhDs and postgraduate programmes. Additionally, she said that due to COVID and the physical closure of the Cyril Potter College of Education, teacher training was expanded and offered online which increased the intake at the College from the traditional 535 to now enrolling 3000 new students due to the training online.
She told the GTU that the aim is to have 100% of the teachers in the education system trained or in the process of being trained, explaining that while there are great untrained teachers in the system, students are more likely to receive better instruction from teachers who have undergone training.
Moreover, she said that the Ministry and the Union must work in partnership and meet each other earnestly and objectively with a singular mission of securing a better future for the children of Guyana. To that end, she said that both parties must develop a stronger alliance that fosters greater social dialogue to facilitate the voices of teachers being fully and continuously heard.
She said that this partnership must ensure that teachers receive access to professional development opportunities that align with the needs of educators and that policies must be devised to advance the empowerment of teachers and their professional practice.
The Ministry’s statement said that the President of the Guyana Teachers’ Union, Mark Lyte called for greater investment in the use of Information Communi-cation Technology (ICT) moving forward, adding that COVID-19 allowed both the Ministry of Edu-cation and teachers to utilize and embrace the benefits of technology to education delivery and management.
Back to 1970s
Meanwhile, in his address to the Congress, Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton called on the union to “represent” the cause of reverting the education system back to the 1970 standards.
“I am a beneficiary of the Burnham education system in the 1970s. It was the pride of the Caribbean. We must return to those lofty standards. Even at the primary level, schooling was first-rate. We need to return to ensuring all children at the primary level must be literate, numerate, and able to reason well,” he said.
He added, “to achieve this, we have to have more well-trained teachers to be able to reduce the size of each class, we need to improve the training of our teachers and formulate and implement policies and programmes to improve the nutrition of our children and take all the necessary action to keep them in school.”
Norton said that the challenge in the education sector is how the new reality is handled while fixing existing issues such as unsatisfactory remuneration and working conditions for teachers, inadequate student performances at all levels, substandard learning and teaching resources and working environment. He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the adoption of new norms with teachers being at the forefront.
He accused the current government of reversing the progress made in the education sector during the APNU+AFC’s time in government noting that more children are failing and dropping out of school.
“As the government in waiting, we intend to reduce the number of students dropping out of school to less than ten per cent of the high school population. This is particularly important when it is noted that between 1992 and 2015 as many as 150,000 students did not finish high school. This trend is with us again in the post-2020 period. This cannot continue. This will not continue,” he said.
Norton said that the APNU+AFC “government in waiting” will develop a people-centred approach to tackling the education system.
“We believe in quality, not just quantity. We believe that we must work with our teachers to build a workforce capable of transforming this country. Your work, teachers, will be the engine of growth of our economy now and long after the oil wells are dry. To help accomplish these goals we will continuously increase teacher salaries, remove the burden of taxation, provide you more access to duty-free concessions and ensure classrooms are smart, modern, and fully resourced,” he said.
