Education Month to pay strict attention to early childhood education

Priya ManickchandGeorgetown: September is Education Month, and this time around it is being celebrated under the theme “Literate by Grade Four Through Consistent Home, School and Community Involvement”.

On the occasion, Education Minister Priya Manickchand in her message said, “We begin another promising and exciting year of teaching and learning and progressive growth in an education system that has shown remarkable improvements over the last two decades.”

The Minister in quoting Audrey Hepburn said, “A quality education has the power to transform societies in a single generation; provide children with the protection they need from the hazards of poverty, labour exploitation, and disease; and give them the knowledge, skills, and confidence to reach their full potential.”

She added that the local education system today has arisen from a deficient and decrepit state – where it teetered along the brink of destruction, with very meagre investments being made in it, and with pass rates of approximately 22 percent.

The promising structure it has become, she said, is as a result of unmatched investment being made by Government, resulting in a pass rate of 60 percent.

“Education Month 2014 comes at a time when, amidst all that it has done and continues to do for education, the Government is on the brink of a no-confidence vote by the political Opposition,” she stated.

Notwithstanding the $38B allocated to the education sector in Budget 2014 being the most money ever invested by a government in education in the history of Guyana, the politics of the Opposition is trying to undermine this investment by asking the PPP/C Government to resign, the Minister said.

According to Minister Manickchand, Guyana, under this Government, is the first country in the Western Hemisphere to grant each child in the public school system $10,000, an approximation of US$50, and the profoundly immoral politics of the Opposition is trying to derail the progress being made by this Government.

 Quoting words from the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan, the Minister said: “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.”

She said Guyana is currently witnessing unprecedented growth in its education sector, with the achievement of universal primary education. Hence, every child in Guyana of the primary age cohort has access to a primary school and this achievement is as a result of strategic government investment with a view to bolstering the primary sector of the education system.

“And should the Government be allowed to serve its constitutional five-year term, then Guyana would have achieved universal secondary education.”

Approximately 85 percent of the country’s children attend nursery school and Guyana now has the most trained teachers ever had in its history, with about 70 percent of teachers being trained. In 1991, Guyana had a mere 58 percent trained teachers in the education system.

“While we have much to be proud of, and to celebrate and give thanks for, we, as a ministry, are very cognisant of the fact that we have much work to do in order to bring our education system to its optimal standard.”

Further the Minister noted that the Government of Guyana continues to do its part to provide adequate resources to service the education sector, so as to ensure the nation’s future leaders are afforded the best education they can get.

“As the Education Month 2014 theme this year suggests, the Ministry is paying strict attention to early childhood education. The focus is on establishing literacy at an early age, ensuring that our young children grasp the concepts of literacy that are intrinsic to their further development in academia and life.”

According to Minister Manickchand, achieving literacy by Grade Four requires a strong partnership between and among the Ministry of Education, schools, parents and children. “We have to work together assiduously to ensure we positively change the literacy level of our children.”