[www.inewsguyana.com] – The Ministry of Education on Friday, July 10 presented awards to the top performers at this year’s National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA). The award ceremony was held at the Princess Hotel and was well attended by parents, teachers, Regional Education Officers, and Senior Functionaries of the Ministry.
The simple ceremony celebrated the achievements of the students and also brought recognition to the hard work of the parents and teachers for bringing students to this point in their lives.
According to a release, Chief Education Officer, Olato Sam, encouraged parents to continue to support their children through their Secondary education as they did during Nursery and Primary. He noted that the trend of parents allowing children to go through their secondary school life with little or no support, needs to stop.
“Mr. Sam encouraged parents to be partners in this process, “We know that successful students at every level of this education system are successful because of the quality of the support they received not just from the institutions they attend but, from their families,” the release noted.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine as he addressed the gathering of more than one hundred and sixty students and their parents.
Dr. Roopnaraine in his address acknowledged that the private schools have been putting out top performers asserting that, “we had become accustomed to a history of excellence from our public school system, but somewhere along the line, the primacy of public education at the primary level has been challenged.”
In conceding that private institutions account for approximately half of the total showing in the top one percent, he said that the rise of private primary education should be seen as a challenge for the public education sector, to become more competitive in the delivery of core services.
The Education Minister reiterated his commitment to ensure that there is equity in education so that the distribution of excellence is no longer skewed towards coastal communities. He pointed out that at this year’s NGSA, Georgetown and the rest of Region 4 account for 120 out of 166 students in the top 1%, which, he says, shows that skills and resources in education are inequitably dispersed.
“This is the challenge to which we must rise; we owe it to our hinterland students to end their deprivation. They must get their fair share of our investment in education,” he stated.
Top NGSA performers will also be benefiting from the One Laptop Per Family Programme.
On second thoughts… this has to be the CEO’s idea. His definition of success is common knowledge… and is widely feared and ridiculed among public school teachers; but nothing gets done about this reputation.
On second thoughts… this has to be the CEO’s idea. His definition of success is common knowledge… and widely ridiculed among teachers; but nothings gets done about this reputation.
What the hell is Ms. Guyana doing at an award ceremony for academic achievement? Is this what we are now advising our children is the hallmark of excellence? Are our young girls to now aspire to be the object of salivating admirers? Rupert, and I sincerely hope this is not his idea, has scored a fat F in this regard. Maybe next year we shall march a Race Horse in to motivate our best minds. Simply poor, disrespectful and belittling.