Govt committed to ensuring children at all levels are educated and nurtured
─ Inaugural Transition Class Summer Camp 2019 begins
─ MoE making provisions for students who did not meet the performance benchmark at NGSA
DPI, Guyana, Monday, July 8, 2019
Students who fell behind the 50% benchmark at the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) examination will be given the opportunity to improve their performance remarkably as the government continues to ensure the youth are taken care of at all levels.
This has been made possible by the implementation of ‘transitional classes’, an initiative piloted by the Department of Education, Georgetown.
The programme aims to address the reasons for low performance and provide a transition year before the students are placed into mainstream classrooms.
One hundred and ten (110) students from these transition classes are, for the first time, participating in a summer camp geared at increasing their educational capacity, before moving into mainstream classrooms at the Grade 7 level.
Participants were drawn from the eight schools in the Georgetown education district that have transition classes – St. Georges High, New Campbellville Secondary, Cummings Lodge Secondary, Houston Secondary, Lodge Secondary, Tucville Secondary, Queenstown Secondary and St. Winifred’s Secondary.
Currently, there is an enrollment of 322 learners in the transition classes at the eight schools.
Transition educator, Acklima Pearce said the education ministry saw the need to implement this initiative after analysing the NGSA results.
“Looking at the analysis, they saw the need for a special programme to be established for those students who were not able to attain the score to enter into the normal Secondary School,” she noted.
District Education Officer of Georgetown who has responsibility for Secondary Education, Sherwyn Blackman explained that the camp is another step in the transition process undertaken by the students and will equip them with skills to be adequately prepared for Grade 7 in mainstream classrooms.
“It is an opportunity for us to help fill the gaps that our students coming from the primary level may have. We thought it best to ensure all our students can successfully transition to the Grade 7 class in a few weeks,” Blackman said.
The transition class students attend Secondary School for six years. The programme is so designed to promote life skills, holistic children and lifelong learning.
“Even though the students would have started with what we call a ‘below average’ mark, many of them have who would have come through the CSEC examinations programme six years later are just as successful as students who were in the regular mainstream schools,” Blackman added.
A pre-test is administered at the beginning of the academic year and a regular follow-up assessment is conducted to ascertain the effectiveness of the programme and the performance of the students. Any deficiency is remedied.
Subjects taught at the transition level are Mathematics, Grammar, Comprehension, Composition, Spelling, Reading, Vocabulary, Phonics, Science, Social Studies, Art and Craft, Physical Education and Poetry.
The camp will run for the next Five Days and is themed ‘Learning Through Fun’.
Images: Marceano Narine