Education Minister Priya Manickchand on Wednesday said that reports about plans to eliminate the Grade Six placement exams are inaccurate, instead, she says, the Ministry is looking for ways to equalise the resources at secondary schools across Guyana.
While declaring the top performers for the 2020 CAPE and CSEC assessments, Manickchand addressed a question about the elimination of placement exams and the response to the idea by many parents and students. Manickchand said that she was shocked by the response of persons but she went on to explain that her words were misinterpreted. “The response to probably two sentences surprised me and caused me great worry.” She elaborated, “I didn’t say we were doing away with NGSA. I said at the launch of the NGSA booster programme, I said we hope to get to a place where it doesn’t matter which secondary school you get, you are going to be able to do well and perform well.”
Manickchand further said that she is inspired by students who are not from top schools, but have performed outstandingly.
“…Without apology we intend to make every secondary school a good and excellent secondary school. People should not hear that to mean that we are taking away from anything that exists, in fact, if we are having a relook at anyone, [it’s] to offer a good secondary.” She declared, “We want to make all secondary schools, schools that will produce children who will do well once they go there.”
Using Queen’s College as an example the minister pointed out that it can only hold 120 students in first form at any one time, therefore the remaining students who perform well enough to get a placement there but cannot attend because “we don’t have enough desks and benches, literally”, will be placed at the other schools which will fit the criteria to produce top performing students who are located all across Guyana and who can still attend a fully equipped school at that said location. “Are we serving resources and the monitoring that allows us to deliver education equally [to achieve this]?” the Minister asked.
“We’re exploring how that can happen and how that will happen…We’re going to work very hard to make all secondary schools equal. I do not want anyone to hear that I said when I said that, we’re taking away from any school. Your job has to be how you are socially conscious to be able to contribute across your country to anyone who did not get into that 120,” Manickchand stated.
The concern about whether the Ministry of Education would be ending the NGSA and other placement exams started after the Minister spoke the NGSA booster programme on Friday last. During the ceremony, Manickchand said that “NGSA is something we have to sit, we have to write, not because we want to test children and find out who is bright and who is not… it’s a placement exam where we have to find out where to put children. After primary school, which high school are you going to? It has turned into something that I don’t like anymore… never really did,” she had said.
While expressing that she isn’t fond of the placement procedure, Manickchand said that there needs to be ways to change this so that it will not matter which school a child is placed at. “…In this government I am letting you know we are close rather than further from the place of saying to you “it doesn’t matter which high school you get, you can do well and you can perform well,” she announced.
In addition, Manickchand had referenced the tradition of Queen’s College which has been in existence for more than a century. She said that the tradition of the school cannot be replaced but the service, quality, facility, resources can be facilitated at other schools to equalise performance across Guyana.
