Education Ministry continues ‘Operation Recovery’

The Ministry of Education continued its “Operation Recovery” initiative on Friday across the country, to recover students who have been absent from school for long periods.

Minister, Priya Manickchand, M.P, spearheaded the quest in Essequibo Islands- West Demerara (Region Three).

“We are certain of two things; the world studies have said to us very clearly that the long school closure could crash the education systems around the world to the point where we’ll see large numbers of drop outs and large gaps of learning loss.

We are certain in Guyana that we do not have to be a part of the statistics. We could take measures to mitigate against those harsh consequences,” the minister said in a live Facebook video, Friday morning.  

The education minister said government is keen on strengthening measures to ensure no child is prevented from acquiring an education.

“One of the things we are doing, is that we are insisting that no child at the Common Entrance, NGSA level will drop out of school and so that’s why we’re engaging in this activity and as soon as we start back school which we expect to do fully, then we’re going to do this for every other grade,” she added.

Meanwhile, Chief Education Officer, Dr. Marcel Hutson, led the search in education district 11, Georgetown. He explained that the initiative is not intended to attack the students and parents.

The ministry, he pointed out, is prepared to offer the necessary assistance to have students return to the school system.

‘We want to find out why they are not in school and maybe what kind of help they may need to get into the school system, because we have to face it, some people have serious problems as a result of the pandemic.

The state has decided to invest in resources whether it has to do with food, finance and transportation. We are ready to bring that kind of assistance and aid to get our children back in school” the education officer added. 

Additionally, he disclosed that over 15,000 primary school students missed school and the large number was shown from the number of students who missed the recently concluded grade six mock examinations. “…the mock examinations are very important because that’s how we get a sense of how they’re performing and see if we could do remediation to bring them to a certain level, so that they could be ready for the examinations, the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) which is scheduled for July,” he said.