Education Minister disclose that more than 75% of absentee children back in school

“Operation recovery” programme being executed by the Education Ministry has seen more than
three-quarters of students who were absent from the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA)
mock examination earlier this year, returning to school.
This ids according to Education Minister, Priya Manickchand, who disclosed that her ministry
had undertaken the outreach initiative last month. She pointed out that it was geared to meet with
students who failed to show up for the preparatory exam. It also targeted students whose record
showed continued absence from school. Manickchand, on Monday noted that the ministry is
continuing the activity to ensure every school-age child returns to active learning in the
classroom.
Following the launch of Guyana’s first artificial intelligence programme ‘Spark’ at the National
Centre of Educational Resources Development (NCERD), the minister told journalists; “I don’t
think people understood that it was never intended to be a one day or one-week activity.
Operation recovery is going to be a prolonged activity.” She said that Education officials have
been fanning out across the country, visiting communities to locate absentee pupils. However,
during the visits they sought to determine the reasons for students’ absenteeism. “The actual
operation recovery, going to homes and finding children was extremely successful. So, we have
gotten more than three-quarters of the kids back in school and you would recall that we have
started with a number of about 1,300 that were absent,” Minister Manickchand, said.
She added, “We saw reasons ranging from poverty to carelessness to extremes. We saw children
not coming out because they were babysitting other younger siblings, these are 10- and 11-year-
olds doing the babysitting. We saw persons who did not even know there were exams or there
was this assessment. We saw children who have been out so long they were heading towards
being drop outs.” The minister noted further that to ensure that students who returned to school
remain, the ministry has implemented a series of practical, sustained measures including a
consolidated curriculum, which will see students revisiting previous’ grades work before
proceeding to their current grade curriculum.
It was revealed that the provision of textbooks, re-training of teachers, use of technology in the
classroom and ‘Operation Recovery’ will continue to counter the learning loss by the nation’s
children.