-all classrooms remained closed for March except for Grades 10,11 and 12 student
All classrooms will remain closed for the month of March except for Grades 10, 11 and 12 students as Government is currently working on having schools throughout the country fully reopened after the Easter holidays.
This is according to Education Minister Priya Manickchand, who on Saturday announced that Guyana’s Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has advised that schools continue to be closed to the traditional classroom learning in the new month.
“For now, we remain close to face-to-face learning… So, for the month of March, we’re going to stay close to face-to-face learning for every grade except for Grades 10, 11 and 12,” the Education Minister noted.
She explained that the Education Ministry has not taken any decision without consulting with and the advice of Dr Anthony, who has been looking at ways that the Health Ministry can accommodate the return of classroom learning during this pandemic.
According to Minister Manickchand, with the recent rolling out of the Health Ministry’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign just a few weeks ago, the above-mentioned will become more of a reality sooner rather than later.
“Once that goes smoothly and as plan, we anticipate that we’re going to be able to open schools sometime after the Easter holiday – not too long after. Please remember, while that is our intention and a desire, that would be dependent upon further advice of the Health Ministry about how well the vaccination programme happen, and how successful they were with the numbers they had anticipate they wanted to meet.”
Meanwhile, she reminded that although the aim is to ensure that face-to-face learning is restored as soon as possible, there certain risks that as a government that they will need to take into consideration.
“The research suggests that the more schools stay close, the more long-term disadvantages we will have, the more students are likely to dropout and the more students are likely to suffer from severe learning lost. The recommendation is that, as quickly as we can, go back into the classrooms at all levels..so we want to minimise that as far as possible but in the meantime, we have a duty in the government to keep our teachers, children and families safe. How do we make that balance work?”
