Manickchand says she is confident that Guyana would not produce poor NGSA exam results

Education Minister, Priya Manickchand (Photo: MOE Facebook page)

Minister of Education Priya Manickchand says she is confident in the ability of students sitting the 2022 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Minister made this statement in light of the number of interventions made by the Ministry despite the challenges the closure of schools for approximately two years has posed to the education system.

“We consolidated the curriculum [...] we prepared worksheet and sent it out, we taught on the television channel, we have a video prepared for every single topic, we have an entire website dedicated to quizzes that we prepare that are specific to these topics,” the Education Minister noted while providing a breakdown of some interventions the Ministry has made.

It is in this regard, Manickchand said “We are confident that we are going to see the results... I really hope that some of our sister CARICOM countries have been bawling about.”

Minister Manickchand providing words of encouragement to students of Bel Air Primary School

In a recent press conference, Trinidad’s Minister of Education, Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, expressed concern about the reduction in the country’s Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination. The SEA exam is the same as compared to the NGSA exam written locally.

The Trinidadian Minister revealed that the number of students who would have scored above 50% in this year’s exams stood at 37.06%- a decrease from 63% in 2020 and 52.49% in 2021.

Minister Manickchand said the decision to have these exams written was made in the best interest of the children.

While providing an update on the exams, Manickchand sent a message to all the students saying, “The schools that we are told about, Queens College, St Joseph, St Stanislaus (etc.) those are all excellent schools, and they do very well, but we can’t fit many children into the school which is why children don’t get those schools not because they are not capable. Our commitment to you is that we are working very hard to make sure every school delivers a high-quality education.”

English papers 1 and 2 will be written in the first half of the day on Wednesday, while Science papers one and two will be written in the afternoon.

On Thursday, Mathematics and Social Studies, papers one and two, will be written in the morning and afternoon, respectively.