In a fierce battle of words over the education sector, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand clashed with Opposition MP Coretta McDonald, and declared that the Government will not rest until it achieves a 100% pass rate in Math and English at the CXC level.
On Tuesday, Minister Manickchand told the National Assembly that the low pass rate linked to Mathematics and English, is not unique to Guyana.
She said the Ministry of Education under her stewardship, has put measures in place to improve the performance of students at both the primary and secondary levels.
“We immediately put and kicked into gear our own Math intervention. What’s that Math intervention? We’re giving to every fourth and fifth formers scientific calculators, geometry sets, graph books, all the textbooks they need, and past papers organized by topic. We’re sending in monitors to make sure teachers are teaching and finishing the syllabus, and we’re going school to school and talking to the parents about their role. We are doing something about it. We are doing something to take us to the place of 100%,” Minister Manickchand said.
Making it clear that the issue is not new, the Education Minister pointed out that under the former APNU+AFC administration, a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) was launched into the Education Sector due to the low pass rates recorded in both Math and English.
She said just last year, the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) expressed dismay over the decline in the pass rate for CSEC Mathematics.
Turning her attention to the contentious issue of investments in infrastructure, Minister Manickchand told the House that it appears to be the philosophy of APNU+AFC not to invest significantly in the construction of schools.
Manickchand said the Government has spent almost $40 Billion to construction new schools over the past years.
She said the Government has also been investing heavily to get more teachers trained.
“Mr. Speaker, they will develop appropriate non-monetary benefits, free land and duty-free concessions for teachers and university professors. Fail! None was given. Increase emoluments and improved working conditions for teachers, fail! Provide an improved quality of education, fail! Ensure equal access to education, fail! Link education and curriculum design to Guyana’s national development needs, fail! Engage teachers and other stakeholders as active participants in the development of education and Guyana, fail!,” she pointed out.
But Opposition MP Coretta McDonald, who is also the General Secretary of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), said while the Government boasts of the number of schools it has built and the number of children it has fed, many of the programmes and projects being implemented today were introduced by People’s National Congress (PNC) and APNU+AFC while in office.
“But sir, let me remind this House that all that is happening, is they are continuing from where we would have left off. LFS Burnham, Mr. Speaker, introduced, for those of you who are too young to know, Cerex, hot milk, biscuits in schools. They have introduced Sir, exercise books and textbooks. Schools were built under the PNC, schools were rehabilitated under the APNU, and effective learning took place during those times,” MP McDonald argued.
She submitted to the House that the country’s financial resources are being wasted at the hands of the PPP/C. MP McDonald said after billions of dollars in “investment,” it is unclear whether the expected outcomes have been achieved.
“A billion here and a billion there; a school here and a school there. But Sir, there is no holistic evaluation of what occurs after the school is opened and the cameras are gone. Sir, this budget has once again confirmed to teachers that their work is not valued by this merciless regime, and the only hope lies in ensuring that they get registered and prepared to return the coalition to government,” the Opposition MP said.
Arguing that quantity does not equate to quality, the Opposition MP said at present, the teacher to student ratio is extremely high, and continues to impact the quality of education.
She said the situation is evident in the performance of students both at the primary and secondary levels. At the secondary level, the matriculation rate is less than 50%.
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