A proposal to make nursery education compulsory has been included in the government’s draft Education Bill.
This was noted in a written response in the name of the Education Minister to questions asked by APNU MP Vanessa Kissoon in the National Assembly. “The Government of Guyana has a draft Education Bill that includes a provision to make Nursery Education compulsory. The Bill is currently under discussion,” the response stated.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand is currently on maternity leave and Youth Minister Dr Frank Anthony has been acting in her stead. It is unclear which of them was responsible for the response.
Kissoon had asked whether the ministry would be making nursery schooling compulsory and, if so, how soon such a move would be implemented.
The minister’s response noted that education is compulsory from five years to nine years. “Recent research has shown the importance of Early Childhood Education. These findings have led many to advocate for compulsory nursery education. Despite this however no country in Caricom has implemented this policy as yet,” the response stated.
Meanwhile, Kissoon also sought to find out why the first year students of the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) 2010-2011 were made to pay $38,000 for laptops and whether they would receive the devices meant for them.
The response to Kissoon’s query noted that government and the World Bank are funding the Guyana Improving Teacher Education Project and the operation manual for it stated that there would be cost sharing for the procurement of net-books for the first year Degree in Education students, tutors and lecturers at CPCE and the University of Guyana. It noted that “IDA will subsidise 50% of the cost of the netbook and the recipient will finance the other 50%.”
The minister’s response further said as per agreement, netbooks were provided to the batch of students who entered the CPCE in September 2011 and the students paid $38,000 while staff members paid $40,000.
In addition, the response said government made available netbooks for the 2010 to the 2012 batch of students who graduated from the two-year Associate Degree in Education (ADE) programme and of these 165 teachers collected their netbooks. “The two remaining centers Linden and Georgetown were notified but to date have not collected their netbooks. They will be receiving 11 and 43 netbooks, respectively. These 219 netbooks were provided free of cost,” it added.
