Largest ever batch of disabled students sit CXC

May 11, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under News, Source

The largest ever batch of differently able students in the Caribbean on Friday took their first Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) Examination at the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA), Thomas Lands, Georgetown.

The students comprising visually impaired persons gathered in the classroom at approximately mid-day to take their Human Social Biology (HSB) exam. This is the first of the five subjects offered to them.

Some of the differently able students preparing to write their first examination.

 

The batch comprises 10 students, both males and females. However, only eight were writing that particular subject.

The students were given new laptops from the One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) to write their exams and were trained by the Guyana Society for the Blind to use the devices.

Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, who visited the students, said she was overwhelmed by the bold move of these individuals.

“What you have seen today… we are going to be recorded as the first centre that had so many visually impaired disabled persons writing CXC at the same time, and the only reason that is possible is because all of these students got a laptop under the OLPF programme.”

In touching on the importance of education, she added, “it is throughout the world known that education is the one sure way of bettering one’s circumstances, and so these children are already vulnerable because of their disability.”

In speaking of equity in the education system, the Minister said that across the world when countries speak of inclusive education they speak of gender priority and geographic education. However, in Guyana this has already been achieved, as there are equal privileges offered to both boys and girls in the education sector.

The Ministry of Education recently launched a five-year plan which says that, a database will be developed for Special Education Needs (SEN) to screen children of Nursery and Primary levels, conduct community-based child-find surveys of children not in the school system and record annually the number of SEN children in the system.

The Ministry has also recently commissioned a Resource Unit for the Visually Impaired on Albert Street, in Alberttown. It was established to give special needs students the opportunity to receive quality education in a much more conducive environment.