With Guyana’s CSEC and National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) results expected to be released between late August and early September, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand has said that the ministry will not be moving away from the practice of publicly naming the top performers.
Over the years, there has been a growing call for the ministry to move away from the practice, with observers citing the inequity of the education sector. Hinterland schools in Guyana are severely disadvantaged as well as some schools on the coastland.
Recently, Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Education Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly announced that the twin island republic will be moving away from publicly ranking schools and performers for the Secondary School Entrance (SEA) examinations. The move came after the county recorded poor performance at the examination owing to learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Trinidad Express reported that the Minister said that while the announcement was initially meant to celebrate students’ accomplishments, it has started fostering “unhealthy competitiveness.” As a result, the government decided to move away from the practice.
“The intention behind this practice was to inspire and openly commend and celebrate our nation’s young scholars and to encourage others learning and hearing about these top performances to achieve similar success.”
“However as recent events have shown this public practice has also begin to result in less that desirable and wholly unintended results, in particular this public practice has resulted in students who have performed admirably to the extent of securing places in their secondary school of first choice to have their meritorious performances overshadowed by an unhealthy competitiveness often driven by parents over relative examination scores which are preliminary,” the Trinidadian Education Minister was reported as saying.
Sunday Stabroek reached out to Minister of Education Priya Manickchand to determine whether the ministry has reconsidered its policy of public ranking. However, this publication was told that it is not a topic up for discussion.
“No [we are not going to stop publicly announcing top performers]. You have to understand the context in which the Trinidadian announcement was made. The Minister said that they have recorded overall low scores and that is why they would not be announcing results publicly so that is how that came about. But to answer your question, this is not something that the Ministry [of Education] has ever considered or will be considering. We believe in celebrating the top performers,” the Manickchand said.
She added “You would find in every country in every sphere they glorify top performers and it is something that inspires people as well. As much as people are concerned there are people who have been inspired to do better. I have had a lot of students say that they worked hard just to make the list and that is a good thing. Excellence is something that should be celebrated and we will continue celebrating excellence.”
Manickchand admitted that the practice has “negative spin-offs” but maintained that exceptional performances should be celebrated. She added that the ministry will continue to work to ensure that there is equity in the system but reiterated that “we will not stop celebrating success.”
Observers have been contending that the ministry publicly naming top performers and schools fosters unhealthy competition as well as ‘breaks the spirit’ of those who did not make the cut. The Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) is expected to release results of the May-June CSEC examinations late August or early September and the NGSA results are expected on September 15.
