The Ministry of Education yesterday launched a five-year National Revised Literacy Action Plan that aims to ensure that every student is a reader by Grade Four.
The launch, which took place along the Main Street Avenue and coincided with International Literacy Day, was hosted under the theme, “The literacy revolution has begun.”
The action plan was outlined by the Minister of Education Priya Manickchand, who said that a literacy test was conducted from grades One to Six and found a 32% grade level literacy rate. “That does not mean the other children could not read,” she said, while urging the media not to sensationalise the finding. “I am not suggesting that 68% of the (Primary) school population is illiterate… but rather 32% was reading at grade level, which was way too low for us.”
Specific goals of the revised action plan that the ministry sought to highlight in an accompanying brochure is to have every child a reader by Grade Four, a 60% pass rate at the National Grade Six Assessment, a 65% pass rate at the National Grade Two and Four Assessments and 50% passes
