-reading only for the next six w
From Monday, for the next six weeks, pupils of the Enterprise Primary School will do only reading interspersed with robotics and some play time as the Education Ministry continues a radical drive to lift literacy rates.
The programme is already underway in four Region Three schools and on Wednesday it premiered in Region Four.
“For the next six weeks all we will be focusing on is reading and reading alone,” were the words of the Minister of Education Priya Manickchand at the launch of the Literacy and Robotics Programme at the East Coast Demerara school. The programme is a collaboration between the National Literacy Department and the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD).
The issue of literacy is particularly troubling at the Enterprise Primary School. According to the Minister there are around 835 pupils with an estimated 750 in primary school and 80 in the primary tops. The primary school has 501 students who cannot read at their age level with 444 students at the basic level of reading, 48 students who are at level two and 16 at level three. The ministry plans to address this issue by dedicating six weeks out of this term on reading.
It will do this by distributing robotics kits, tablets and a curriculum to the school. Senior teachers will then be selected and trained to teach children literacy with the aid of the kits. During the course of the six weeks the children will be divided into groups of 45 where they will focus on learning new words, fractions, colours, directions and patterns as well as learning to build robots, coding and problem solving.
The initiative will encompass the entire school except for the students writing the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) and will commence on Monday. The ministry is looking to expand the programme nationwide beginning with grades four and five as well as the students waiting for exams by the end of May before turning their focus to grades one, two and three in September. The Minister also said the ministry would be closing the primary tops section of the school and relocating the older students to other secondary schools such as Good Hope Secondary upon its completion stating, “They need a high school by themselves. And we’re going to be able to do that because Good Hope Secondary is going to be completed shortly.”
She urged parents to remember the previous government’s failure to complete the Good Hope project and the various initiatives the current government is putting in place to make education more accessible to citizens stating, “Politics, political decisions, and policies made affect your life in very ordinary ways. That is why you have to get political. We have children who should be in a secondary s a primary school with inadequate ed going to be able to change that shortly to make the connection. Political lea to your life”, she asserted.
Manickchand went on to say that t tried a number of reading programm schools around the country; and the look bad”. So, in an effort to curb t levels she said , “So we’re going rad the school to stop doing everything el for the next six weeks is reading, pho ation, letter sounds. And because we can get saturated, we’re mixing it robotics and play.”
In a response to the reservations of ing teaching only reading for the peri reassured them, saying that, “What w Den Amstel is that (in) under six w who cannot pronounce twenty word your children did; are now reading fl
The literacy programme is currentl Den Amstel, Kawall, La Retraite an primary schools in Region Three.
Manickchand then went on to an from parents and grandparents. One o tions posed was by a grandparent, minister why the reading level was so place and how it can be fixed. response was that the closure of schoo ly two years because of COVIDschooling played a role in the slow learning. “Even before COVID, 40% dren at common entrance were unab 50% or more”, she said.
Beverly Nichols, the grandparent child attending Enterprise Primary s on the consistency of the programm “My narrative was, would it be that forward, so at the time the other slo coming up would able to go forward enthusiasm of learning or is the same endorsed going forward?”
In response to this the minister assu programme will continue, stating th gramme that will be very consistent to add that after the programme there trated literacy time with story books t is currently procuring and that from S child from nursery school to A leve produce a book report on a differe month.
A teacher of the school raised th social and economic conditions of m her class saying, “Many of them are n and if you are not fed properly you ca they fall asleep.”
After stating that this is an issue t Manickchand then asked about the Six feeding programme and made me cuits and juice delivered to every