Education Minister declares that ministry did all it could to prepare students for NGSA

Education Minister, Priya Manickchand, anticipates positive outcomes, given the resources, and the many initiatives applied to prepare students for the major examination, as Grade Six pupils across the country sit the 2022 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA).

An estimated 16,288 children across the country are sitting Mathematics, English, Science, and Social Studies in the examinations set for July 6 and July 7. Minister Manickchand visited the Bel Air Primary School, Georgetown ahead of the exams on Wednesday, and extended best wishes to the students there.

“We are very glad to be able to run off these exams, particularly because we made specific efforts to make these children ready,” Manickchand said following her interaction with students.

She continued, “We are very confident that we are not going to be seeing some of the results that some of our sister Caricom countries have been bawling about recently.”

The minister noted that like the rest of the world, schools in Guyana were closed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She said that while virtual teaching became common during that period, in April this year, schools fully reopened for face-to-face learning.

Manickchand explained that the closure, posed a number of challenges in terms of effectively delivering quality and equitable education to the nation’s children, particularly those in far-flung areas.

The education minister said that as a result, the government implemented some very bold initiatives to ensure students were able to tackle the learning loss resulting from the prolonged school closure. She said that these included, the consolidation of the curriculum to enable students to catch up on work they missed out, and facilitate their re-entry in the classrooms.

“We prepared work sheets, we taught on the television channel, we have a video prepared for every single topic. We have an entire website dedicated to quizzes that we prepared that are specific to these topics, and so there is little else that could be done by the ministry to prepare these children,” she further explained.

Minister Manickchand stressed that government is committed to ensuring pupils receive a high-quality secondary education.

“Our commitment to you is that we are working hard to ensure all the schools deliver a very high-quality education so, if you get Campbellville Secondary you must be confident that in five years, you will be a student to whom value was significantly added, and who will be productive in society once they leave the school,” the minister disclosed.

Manickchand also thanked teachers and parents for their dedication and hard work in preparing students for the examination.

It was noted that the NGSA is considered a significant assessment for pupils in Guyana, as the scores will be used to determine their placement at a secondary school in September. Additionally, pupils are writing paper one and two in English Language and Science, on Wednesday, and on Thursday, Mathematics and Social Studies papers 1 and 2.