Georgetown: Newly appointed Minister of Education, Ms. Priya Manickchand, is on a focused mission to reverse a disturbing trend in the education sector, which according to her allows for “text books to be either in Central Georgetown or in stores in the different Regions but not in the children’s hands.” This state of affairs, the Minister described as “unacceptable, and I don’t believe a lot of energy needs to be expended to fix it and I certainly don’t believe this is something that we should be fixing every month.” Minister Manickchand also made reference to the delayed availability of lab chemicals and other materials, which according to some teachers have been hindering their teaching efforts. This dilemma, she assured, will become a thing of the past in a matter of months.
The Minister’s remarks were forthcoming Friday last as she addressed a cluster meeting of teachers drawn from Taymouth Manor to Good Hope on the Essequibo Coast during a visit to Region Two. She pointed out that there are times at the ministry that “we are not the most effective people; you send things to us and it sits on somebody’s desk. We are not going to be doing those kinds of things anymore.”
According to the Minister there is an urgent need for efficiency in the Ministry and by extension the public school system which would allow more focus to be directed to bigger things “like how we are going to improve our Mathematics grades or how we can have our entire country become capable of reading and matching subjects and verbs…These are real issues that face us and we are expecting that you (teachers) deliver in the classroom your best so that at the end of the day the reason you teach will be realized – that children would be productive citizens.”
Alluding to the teaching profession as “an almost frightening job”, the Minister pointed to the fact that teachers are entrusted with moulding the minds of children and therefore are charged with determining what they become. “Here you have a classroom of children and it could be very overwhelming…”
However, she noted that there are positive sides to the teaching profession as teachers are the ones who are again entrusted to determine what Guyana would look like in the future. “That is a huge responsibility and I believe you are ready to honour the challenges that present themselves because you are in the profession,” the Minister noted.
In light of this, she disclosed that efforts are already being directed at addressing the needs of teachers with a view of making their profession more worthwhile. She pointed out that while a huge raise is not currently on the agenda “we are examining ways to make your life better; we are examining those with pleasure because I believe that if anybody should be made comfortable, it is the teachers.”
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