Education sector response to COVID-19 trending in the Caribbean

GUYANA IS A TREND-SETTER IN EDUCATION AMONG CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES
following the outbreak of the highly contagious and deadly coronavirus pandemic according to
Education Ms. Minister Priya Manickchand.
Manickchand made the disclosure during a press conference this week when she met with
reporters to update them on a range of issues in the local learning sector.
The ministry, like other countries globally, was forced to halt in-class instructions in all schools
when it became obvious that the contagious virus had reached this South American country some
15,168 kilometres (9, 425 miles) from China where the deadly disease originated.
However, innovation ruled the roost among local educators at all levels of the learning system.
“Guyana gave the best response to school closure,” Manickchand remembered.
“We refashioned the Learning Channel and created videos for every topic and every subjects
according to the curriculum on the channel. We created worksheets where we printed and
distributed them in accordance with the curriculum, we taught online, we created quiz websites
and booster programmes for exam classes,” the minister told reporters.
According to Manickchand, the country’s education sector response won the admiration of other
CARICOM countries who want to embrace the model, “so much so that other Caribbean
countries have asked us to borrow our materials.”
“We happily gave that and we are very proud of those efforts,” Manickchand told local reporters.
The minister lauded the response of ministry of education officials, school administrators,
teachers, parents and students to the global health emergency which threatened to overwhelm the
learning system following the massive outbreak of the deadly virus in Wuhan, China at the end
of 2019.
However, according to the Guyanese minister, these ‘First Aid’ measures cannot substitute for
traditional face-to-face teaching and learning.

“I am very proud of those efforts as it showed what we are capable of. Even the consolidating of
this curriculum was smart, incisive and an appropriate response and that took time and efforts
and strategic partnering of thinking. We learnt very clearly in that time that all those efforts, any
of those efforts or even a combination of all would never replace the value of a teacher in front
of the classroom.”
The minister admitted education authorities “learnt very starkly how many children come before
us every day in school without parental support. We learnt very starkly how disinterested some
environments at home are in education, and it restated for us our purpose here. So, the
worksheets were great interventions and they are not going anywhere. We are revising them to
make them relevant to the consolidated curriculum but they can’t replace a teacher in front of the
classroom.”
“I didn’t write any of these worksheets. I watched people worked day and night quietly without
complaining to getting these (worksheets) done because we knew that a number of students
depended upon us. I am very proud of those efforts as it showed what we are capable of,”
Manickchand said lauding the initiatives of the nation’s educators.
The ministry is currently undertaking diagnostic assessments of students to determine the type
and level of psychological intervention learners might need as a consequence of the
unanticipated, long absence from in-class learning.
The ongoing appraisals “is aimed at getting from the child what they need and how we can
address that to make learning possible and teaching effective so we just don’t go in and start
teaching on the blackboard (without prior knowledge),” the minister explained.
“I suspect strongly that we are going to see a different need arising, how we address that will be
dependent on what arises,” Manickchand explained.
She said the ministry has linked up with several agencies and international bodies to help
sharpen the national vision to assist students to get back on track in their continued face-to-face
learning.
“I had a brief chat with UNICEF (the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund)
about some support we can get. We know that right now more than 530 children have decided to

leave the primary school, when they supposed to be going into first form. We are hiring persons
to after every single one,” the minister assured.

“I am pretty sure when we find those children it wouldn’t just be a cajole and come back into
school. It would have to be fixing a lot of things in their homes (and) psychosocially to get them
back in the classroom. We are prepared to do that because that is how important it is to them and
us.”
Children must not be condemned “to a life of poverty,” Minister Manickchand reminded
reporters.