Rupert Roopnaraine
Minister of Education for Guyana
Guyana is one of the highest ranked developing countries in the Education Index of the United Nations Human Development Report but continues to struggle with the provision of increased access to satisfactory secondary education. What are the main short and medium-term goals for this government to increase access to satisfactory secondary education?
Well I’m hoping that by the end of the first five years of this government, we will have achieved 100% secondary education. We will have achieved the goal which we’ve achieved currently at the primary level. Universal secondary education would be, to my mind, a real mark of success in the course of the next five years.
We have a great deal to do to pick up the educational system. One problem we face which we are addressing as we speak is the physical infrastructure, the physical condition of the schools. Not just the condition of the schools, but the condition of the sports facilities in all of the schools.
I have really been stressing the fact that while we do extremely well in the examinations currently in the Caribbean as a whole, which is what you’re alluding to, I am myself not entirely happy that children are so examination-focused and that a lot of extra-curricular experience gets neglected.
And that is why I have put great stress on putting music back into our schools as well as sports. You know, it’s of course budgetary constraints that prevent me from doing what I really want to do, which is to support a full steel pan orchestra in each school. That’s not going to happen. But what I also know is that every child is born with a musical instrument, namely the voice, and there is no reason why we should not have vigorous school choir development throughout the country. I’m working towards a national choir competition around the time of the 2016 commemoration activities, with schools competing in this choir competition. Getting the children singing throughout the country is something I would really like to see. And we are beginning to work at it
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