Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 13, 2012 News
Although challenged in its quest to secure a venue for yet another consultation on special education needs, the Ministry of Education was able to persevere and hold a final session for the year at the Hadfield Street, Georgetown, Regency Hotel, yesterday.
Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, said that her Ministry is currently on a mission to hear from all stakeholders inclusive of persons with disabilities as well as persons who work with those with disabilities.
“We want to hear from you about how it is we can make our education system better to cater for persons living with disabilities,” the Minister said.
“It is amazing that some of the things that we have heard; some very, very small things that could make a huge difference that I believe could have been done before but perhaps we didn’t have this kind of pull together…”
With the information arising from the consultations, the Minister believes that the Ministry will from next year budget to support an Action Plan that will allow it to meet the needs of the population.
She added, too, “We are keenly aware that if we don’t involve everyone in Guyana then we are going to be denying ourselves a rate of development in our country and denying all our people that rate…”
The Minister said that Guyana is fortunate that when it speaks of inclusive education it is not speaking any longer of merely including children from hinterland communities and gender since the education sector has already achieved this goal.
“We are not speaking about including girls and boys because we have got there; we’ve struggled to get there but we have got there…” The Minister noted that efforts must be directed towards addressing the dropout rate among the nation’s boys.
Even as this is being done, she noted that there is a similarly urgent need to include one group that is not yet fully included.
Pointing to persons with disabilities, the Minister said that “we want to change that they are not included.” She noted that consultation is the first step towards the much needed change.
By the inclusion of special education needs in its five-year Strategic Plan, it is expected that partners from all over the world will render support to the Education Ministry to aid inclusive education at a national and more expanded level. Inclusive Education is one of the eight major strategic objectives in the current education plan.
Even as she stressed the need for support, the Minister said that “this is not the first consultation and I have noticed that the press has been very lazy in reporting on this particular issue…This does the community of disabled persons harm not the Ministry…”
Several other consultations have been held in Georgetown, Linden and New Amsterdam, fora which were premised on an approach adopted by the Ministry to listen to the persons who are integrally involved, said Minister Manickchand.
At the moment other consultations are being held with regards to the Automatic Promotion Policy, the Grade Retention Policy and the issue of Corporal Punishment. The latter issue is currently before the National Assembly which is expected to pronounce on it.
Tomorrow another consultation is slated for the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, where the establishment of a National Teaching Council will be discussed.
This session, according to the Minister, will be held jointly with the Guyana Teachers’ Union with a view to defining what to expect of teachers in every respect including licensing and continuous education.
“Everything we do in the Ministry we make sure that we hear from the people who are using the system every day, particularly because we want to hear all those things that might not get told to us or might be covered up by even some of us…” said the Minister as she urged the participants to seek to be “very, very frank with us.”
The aim of yesterday’s undertaking, which saw the attendance of a number of education experts, including Chief Education Officer, Olato Sam, was to allow the stakeholders drawn from the various regions to help to better define a special education needs policy for the education sector.
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