The first Literacy and Robotics Programme of the Ministry of Education was launched at Den Amstel Primary School, Region Three yesterday through the National Literacy Department and the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD.
Den Amstel Primary School is the first school in the country to benefit from this programme and Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, said that she has been working with parents and teachers of the school. A Ministry of Edu-cation press release yesterday stated that that one of the issues was that children attending the school were not reading and performing acceptably according to their grade level. The release stated that a decision was taken to send a team to assess the children of the school and it revealed that 70% of the learners were not reading on par with their grade level. Manickchand told teachers that the school will not be the same anymore for the 45 out of 67 learners who have trouble reading. These pupils will be locked into a strict six-week literacy programme and exposed to robotics at intervals.
The Education Minister appealed to parents present, explaining that for the programme to work, their children need to attend school consistently. “I could guarantee you this… almost anything you do consistently for six weeks whether, by coincidence, or divinity, you will see results. You’re going to see it, the children who come consistently are going to be the children who move, the children who are frequently absent are going to be the children who are left behind.”
The release also said that Manickchand stated that the Ministry of Education alone cannot help the children to improve. The learning materials and human resources will be provided but parents must commit to taking their children to the next level by supporting the programme. Assistant Chief Education Officer (Literacy), Samantha Williams said yesterday the results of the Ministry’s 2021 literacy diagnostic assessment showed that there is a higher percentage of pupils at the primary level who are reading three to four or more ages below their age and grade level.
The release said that to improve these statistics and ensure that every child has an opportunity to become a fluent reader by Grade Four, the Ministry of Education, through the National Literacy Department, will begin to implement a menu of measures with yesterday’s launch being one of many to come. The literacy programme will provide an intensive fast-paced remedial intervention to fast-track learners’ literacy skills, especially their ability to read. The Ministry of Education expects that with consistent quality instructions, continuous tracking of performance and prescriptive methodology, the learners who start this intervention will begin to see improvement and move closer to reading at their age level within six weeks of the programme.
Williams also explained that the programme will be delivered through an in-school mechanism as well as an afternoon reading club programme. She said that the in-school programme will begin at the basic level, move on to the intermediate level and culminate at the advanced level. Meanwhile, the after-school programme will take the form of a reading club where the enthusiasm for reading books will develop.
