-by Shamiah Grant

The Ministry of Education is rolling out a countrywide initiative to engage directly with Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs), as part of strengthening Guyana’s education system and ensuring accountability in schools.

This is according to the Minister of Education, Sonia Parag, who assured that this initiative is intended to strengthen collaboration, reinforce accountability, and drive improved outcomes for students.

“That engagement is going to assist us, and assist parents, teachers, students with having a better partnership that we can work together to ensure that schools, that the policies that we are establishing in the ministry for example is being carried out in schools.” she said.

Minister Parag further emphasised that parents would have a chance to raise issues and concerns such as school dropouts, bullying and absenteeism.

“That is to assist us to have direct information sharing between the ministry and the PTAs, so that we can achieve the goals that we want to achieve, the objectives that we want to achieve the sector as a whole whether that means ensuring there is attendance in schools.”

Besides this, the ministry has embarked on other projects aimed at strengthening accountability for schools. One such initiative was a school report
cards, to grade the overall performance of schools. The report card initiative will assess metrics like academic performance, teacher attendance, curriculum delivery and how schools make use of resources.