With improvements in education system – regions now claiming top performers
A GINA Feature- August 22, 2012 -- Source - GINA
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand addressing parents and students of the Leonora Secondary School prior to the introduction of the CXC pilot project
Bettering education delivery has been one of the focal areas of the PPP/C Government, in recognition that an educated populace is key to the development of a nation. Its investments to date have realised tremendous benefits, as the country’s performance at the primary and secondary levels, has grown over the years.
But this has not always been the case, as successes were only evident in mostly city schools, that each year took the cream of the results. Recognising this, greater attention has been paid to equality, by the Education Ministry.
This realisation has in recent times, better allowed schools outside of Georgetown to have access to quality education, through the delivery of teaching aids, text books and teacher training to better administer the school’s curriculum.
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand with CSEC 2012 Top performer Sarah Hack and CXC officials.
Improvements
The construction of modern institutions and the development of the Education Strategic Plan (2008/2013), which was crafted to identify priority policies and strategies, have been aspects pursued.
Since the initiation of the latter, the quality of output has significantly improved – as the increased provision in placement at the nursery level, especially in remote regions; improvements in pre-literacy skills, and greater performance at CAPE and CXC outputs, were evident in learning institutions throughout the 10 Administrative Regions.
Top performers – no longer from City only
Schools throughout the length and breadth of Guyana are now producing top performers, even as the Ministry continues to strengthen its partnership with stakeholders, in particular parent/teacher associations and other community social groups.
Last year, the top CSEC performers each gained 15 Grade Ones, Anurada Dev of Queen’s College and Shalita Appadu of New Amsterdam Multilateral, Region Six.
This success was also observed in the Mining Town of Linden with Zainab Abdul Karim of Mackenzie and Seriena Alli of Abrams Zuil Secondary, each achieving 13 Grade Ones.
Students of Anna Regina, Abrams Zuil, and Cotton Field Secondary, Region Two; West Demerara, Patentia, Zeeburg and Essequibo Islands secondary schools, Region Three: Bush Lot, Rosignol and Bygeval Secondary Schools, Region Five; Tagore Memorial, Skeldon Line Path and J C Chandisingh, Region Six; and St Ignatius Secondary, Region Nine were also in the top scorers at the 2011 exams.
Ninety seven of the 188 students who secured Grade One passes in eight or more subjects are from Region 4, followed by Region 6, with 32; Region 2 with 23; and Region 3 with 20.
This year, Sarah Hack of Abrams Zuil copped 16 Grade Ones and there were also several other regional top performers: Bibi Ameena Nazaralie of Saraswati Vidya Nikitan and Keikel Mahabir of West Demerara Secondary with 13 Grade Ones each, Roschelle Sparman of Mackenzie High and Vishwati Oudhram of Saraswati Vidya Nikitan; with 12 Grade Ones each.
At the National Grade Six Assessment in 2011, Terron Alleyne of Regma Primary, Region Ten copped the top spot. C.V. Nunes in Region Two; Leonora, Region Three, Novar, Region 5; and Cumberland, Region 6, were among the top performers.
A little school and a high flyer
Sixteen- year old, Sarah Hack, from Abrams Zuil Secondary School on the Essequibo Coast, Region Two, who copped 16 Grades Ones, accredits her success, to God, the support of family, friends and teachers.
“My faith and trust in God was very enduring. My success was a really taxing journey, over all; with a lot of sleepless nights while studying, but… it was well worth it,” she said.
Asked about the work of the school, she pointed out that everyone (teachers), while disciplined, were hard workers, even pushy at times, but it was all for the best.
Over the last three years, Abrams Zuil Secondary has been gaining significant attention for its performances, despite being a little school located on the Essequibo Coast. In 2011, the school also secured the first and second top spots for the region in the CSEC examination.
The top performer, who will be heading off to College in the United States of America, come 2013, lauded the teachers in the school system, alluding to the fact that the quality of teaching has improved exponentially.
The school was named after the village.
The $293.5M Leonora Secondary School
Spending
Education as a percentage of the National Budget has risen from 4.4 percent in 1990, to an average of 15 percent over the last seven years. The, $24.3B allocation in 2011 was spent on construction and rehabilitation of schools, equipping ICT labs and acquisition of text books. The 2012 allocation is $26.6B.
More than $85.6M was approved by Government for the procurement of CXC text books, self-study guides for CXC, revision DVDs, model solutions to difficult answers, geometry sets, graph papers and calculators, which were distributed to schools that are part of a pilot project that was implemented in those that are underperforming.
This year’s results showed that this project did bring about improvements in the CSEC results.