Essequibo : Although many schools will be aiming to be listed among the outstanding performing institutions come the unveiling of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Examination later this year, perhaps positioned at the top of the most ambitious is a junior secondary school. Situated on the Essequibo Coast, Abram Zuil Secondary School has been gradually making a name for itself even securing the first and second top spots for Region Two last year for the CSEC Exam and claimed the first and third positions of the very exam of the countries Junior Secondary schools.
According to Headmaster of the school, Mr Roopchand Persaud, the gradual improvements recorded by the school has been linked to the support the school has been receiving from its Parent/Teacher Association. “We have a very vibrant PTA and so we are getting the maximum cooperation. I want to believe that one of the major reasons we are doing well is that we are getting 100 per cent support from our parents and by extension our students.” However the performance of the school is not limited to the support of the PTA as according to Mr Persaud the school has to its credit a high level of discipline. Moreover, he noted that “it would be an even greater motivation for us to strive for even better and higher heights…we are moving gradually that is why we are appealing for our constraints to be addressed, we want a level competing field and we pledge that we will do much better.”
Mr Persaud alluded to constraints such as open class rooms, shortage of resources, especially in the Science area, and the need for a new school building. However, he revealed that he has since engaged the Ministry of Education and the Regional Education Office and “I hope that they will give us the necessary facilities we need.” Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand has also assured that she will do everything within her power to help foster improved performances.
In fact the Minister’s assurance has been reflected by an $85.7M Government approved contract for the procurement of items to boost students’ learning. These included CXC General Maths Book I and II, the Self-Study Guide for CXC, the collection of revision DVDs, the combined pass papers from 2008 to 2011, Model Solutions to difficult answers, Combined Solution for everything in addition to a geometry set, graph paper and a scientific calculator which have been distributed to the participating schools. Each student slated to be a part of a pilot project introduced by the Ministry of Education has been provided with the procured materials and teachers have been provided with individual syllabuses and a collection of the package to allow them to effectively work with each student.
The initiative, which is aimed at improving the results of CSEC Maths amd English, has been deemed as an excellent one by Mr Persaud who pointed out that “we need at the Grade 11 level to work harder on emphasizing the importance of the syllabus coverage. We all know that Maths and English are two very important subjects and at Abram Zuil Secondary, with this initiative, we would be given that kind of push that our children would be able to perform much better.”
“We applaud the initiative and we are going to work as hard as possible to ensure its success…We are concentrating on the academic programme being priority and we are already seeing improvements,” Mr Persaud added.
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