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The Ministry of Education, on Tuesday, launched the newly upgraded Quiz Me platform which caters to improved access to education for students across Guyana both in public and public schools.
The platform, which can be accessed at https://education.gov.gy/quizme/, was launched at the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD), Kingston, Georgetown.
It currently holds just under 50 quizzes with 40 questions each but these will be built upon over time. Though it prioritizes National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) students, other levels of students can expect to see quizzes that suit them in the near future.
The examination-type questions will be focused on the subject areas of English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. The platform is child-friendly and notifies the user when both the correct and incorrect answer is selected. If answered incorrectly, the correct answer is provided.
Questions come in a range of formats such as multiple-choice, true or false, fill in the blanks, answer matching and more. They are also categorized based on the year of release of the questions and their category within a particular subject area.
The questions, which invoke reasoning, were put together by local teachers in collaboration with experts at NCERD. Furthermore, all materials on the Ministry of Education’s website is zero-rated which means that data will not be charged to access the Quiz Me platform.
According to Head of Information Systems at the Ministry of Education, Phil Mingo, this increases the access to education for students in the hinterland who may not have access to active internet connection.
He told the audience that just a few months prior, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand challenged the team at the Ministry to use technology to improve education delivery and students’ preparedness for the various examinations. The efforts led to improvements on the 2014 quiz platform to cater for different school levels, additional contributors and additional questions.
“Considering the various types of devices being used by students, teachers, parents and so on, the platform was designed to be very responsive. This means that it does not matter whether the user has a mobile phone, a tablet, laptop, desktop or old or new. With access to the internet the Quiz Me platform can still be used and respond appropriately to the devices used,” Mingo said.
In key remarks, the Minister of Education explained that there is greater focus on NGSA because it is currently the upcoming examination but the platform will see more quizzes for all grades and other improvements. She said that the Ministry’s hope is that the Quiz Me platform will increase the performance of students but it is only after an assessment that this will be determined.
“It is not easy for us to stand here and boast about all these things we did because we still don’t know what the outcome will be, that’s something we’ll have to measure,” Manickchand said.
“What is factual is that students are getting more at a time when we are in a crisis than they ever got before. Getting more — parents and teachers — don’t amount to doing better unless the more that we give is used and utilized effectively and we want to plead with you to make sure these services are…used effectively.”
