New Education Bill for Parliament

Priya ManickchandGeorgetown: As the Ministry of Education continues to reform and modernize Guyana’s education sector, the Honorable Minister of Education, Ms. Priya Manickchand will be presenting a new Education Bill to the National Assembly on Thursday June 19, 2014. This new Education Bill is expected to provide adequate frameworks for the delivery of high quality, contemporary education, to better develop each student’s potential and maximize their educational achievement.

Some of the key areas of this new Education Bill which once passed will repeal the old Education Act include: rights and responsibilities of students and parents, categories of schools and the stages of education, management of public educational institutions, employment of teachers, curriculum assessment of students, inspection and review of the education system

This new Education Bill comes at a most opportune moment in Guyana’s history, especially since the current Education Act utilized in Guyana came into being since 1876, with its last amendments made it seems sometime in 1976. The Government of Guyana in recognizing the misalignment of Guyana’s education legislation with contemporary regional and international education benchmarks, decided since 2005, to set about drafting a new Education Bill that can adequately address the modern education issues and challenges currently experienced by the sector. This bill reflects information gleaned by the Ministry through a number of public consultations held countrywide between the MOE and all key stakeholders.

The Ministry of Education hopes to get the unrestrained support of the full House in getting this new Education Bill through Parliament and made into Law from which all of Guyana, particularly her children, will benefit.