Georgetown, Guyana- (August 12, 2015) Cabinet on Tuesday, August 11, granted its approval for a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to be launched into the public education system. This will be done with the aim of finding out whether the system is working for the students who are in it.
Speaking at this week’s post Cabinet press briefing this morning, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said that the approval was granted for the appointment of the Commission with the mandate of enquiring into the state of the public education system and to provide strategic guidelines for the enhancement of public education.
The Commission will be comprised of a Chairman and two Vice Chairmen, and will include representatives from the Nursery, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary levels of public education, the Teaching Service Commission (TSC), the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU), the political opposition, the Private Sector Commission (PSC), religious bodies, Youth Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) among others.
This approval comes on the heels of statements made by Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan during his Budget Presentation on Monday, where he said that Education occupies a prominent role in the Government’s post-2015 development agenda.
This agenda he said, is to build this great land of Guyana for the benefit all the people through the envisioning of a sustainable socio-economic development, good governance and human safety within a green economy where all citizens have equitable access to high quality education and learning opportunities and where education is positioned as the key intermediary through which the foundation is laid for a robust and competitive economy, as well as an inclusive and socially cohesive society.
“We need to consider what quality of education is being provided, and how we are assessing quality. We will undertake a detailed and objective study of the weak links in our education system to determine at which points we are failing our children as they progress through school, and use the results to craft appropriate policy responses,” he had said.
Education has been one of the areas that President David Granger has been most vocal about. He has repeatedly said that every child deserves a good education and the public education system should be able to shoulder that need.
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