Teachers “begging” to return to physical classrooms – Manickchand

 …however, only Ministry of Health can approve this
…Ministry considering localized opening in different places

Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand said on Thursday that there are teachers “begging” to return to physical classrooms but the Ministry cannot support this request unless it is approved by the Ministry of Health, due to the danger of COVID-19,

“Teachers are begging us to go back into the classroom on mass, not one or two, not an ad hoc story here or there, large number of teachers want to go back into the classroom, parents are asking us but we are in a pandemic and that has specific considerations and so we can’t go back into the classroom until we are so advised by the Ministry of Health and they would know that based on information they have regarding community spread, safety issues and so on,” Minister Manickchand said at a meeting with the media on Thursday.

Giving an example, she said that in Region Nine, the majority of a village has signed on to a petition requesting the reopening of primary schools there as the area has had no cases of COVID-19 in quite some time.

“That would be a consideration almost immediately for us in particular villages…all the research in the world says that the more we keep our children out of schools and the more we keep them disengaged, the more likely we are to lose them to the education system. That would be a travesty of immeasurable proportions,” Manickchand said.

However, she made clear: “Any reopening of schools at any level or all levels will depend strictly on what we’re told by the Ministry of Health.” The Minister said that to fill the need to meet in person the best of its ability, the MOE has supported online teaching, the Guyana Learning Channel, worksheets and education via the radio.

In the cases where classrooms have been opened to students of higher grades, the Education Minister said that, contrary to reports, there were only isolated cases of COVID-19. In many of those cases, she said that it was the child who contracted this from within their family and not from within the classroom setting.

Manickchand said that from the start of the pandemic to August 2020, there was no effective strategy in place to manage effective education provision while protecting learners and teachers from the virus. Following consultation with these stakeholders, the Minister said that a strategy was developed by the current Government which is effective.