All schools to re-open on April 25 in Guyana
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) – The Guyana government says all schools will re-open on April 25 as the country seeks to return to normalcy two years after recording the first case of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has killed 1,226 and infected 63,195 others.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand said all systems are being put in place to re-open schools to address the two years of learning loss.
“Some skills that were acquired will be lost and forgotten and you might even have the phenomena of dropouts presenting itself in larger numbers than we have ever seen before and we are seeing indications of all of those things so we are ready… We are making sure of course that schools are ready to be re-opened fully from April 25th after the Easter holiday.”
She said to ensure teachers and students are prepared for the new term, the ministry has implemented a staggered system that will see students revisiting studies from their previous grade within 20 weeks before moving on to the new term’s curriculum.
Additionally, the ministry is working to ensure that every school is equipped with the necessary tools and equipment to be fully functional before the new term commences.
Manickchand, speaking on the sidelines of the newly launched artificial intelligence leadership programme, Spark, on Monday, also announced that a new programme will be rolled out nationally to target literacy loss in the four core subjects.
“You’re going to see an assault on illiteracy, you will see an entire national programme rolled out to recover from the literacy loss we would have had and all the gains we would have made that went down the drain in two years,” Manickchand said.
“Every single student is going to be diagnosed, we are issuing a diagnostic for Mathematics, English, Social Studies and Science – the four cores. Every student will be diagnosed and each student will be attended to individually to make sure that we recover from the COVID loss.”
Schools in Guyana were closed in March 2020 and Manickchand said the pandemic provided the ministry with the opportunity to review its literacy programme.
