The Government’s launch of a National Mathematics Taskforce has drawn renewed attention to what many educators and analysts describe as a long-standing crisis in Guyana’s education system, where billions of dollars in spending and years of reform efforts continue to produce weak mathematics outcomes in a country now seeking to compete in a technology-driven global economy.
Education Minister Sonia Parag recently announced the establishment of the taskforce to examine mathematics performance across all school levels and develop what she described as a “comprehensive, sustainable strategy” to improve national results.
The initiative comes against the backdrop of persistently poor mathematics pass rates at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) level. In 2025, Guyana recorded a 32 percent pass rate in Mathematics, up from 27 percent in 2024, meaning nearly seven out of every 10 students still failed the subject.
The continued underperformance has become increasingly alarming given Guyana’s rapid economic expansion and growing demand for skills in science, technology, engineering, finance, and innovation.
Speaking at the taskforce’s first meeting at the National Centre for Education and Research Development (NCERD), Minister Parag acknowledged major deficiencies not only in student performance but also in teacher preparation.
“You have teachers who have the knowledge, but they don’t know how to deliver; you have teachers who can deliver, but they don’t have the knowledge,” Parag said.
“So, we still have to align those things so that you have more teachers who have the knowledge and can also deliver in the classroom.”
The minister further admitted that the Ministry of Education itself may be contributing to the problem.
“And I don’t think it’s to be offensive to any teacher,” she said. “It’s just saying that perhaps we at the Ministry of Education need to improve the way we are training our teachers.”
Her comments come despite Guyana allocating approximately G$175 billion to education in 2025 and increasing the sector’s allocation to about G$183.6 billion in 2026, making education one of the country’s largest areas of public expenditure.
Yet education advocates and policy observers argue that despite the spending, the system continues to struggle with foundational literacy and numeracy while failing to adequately prepare students for participation in the modern economy as innovators, entrepreneurs, engineers, researchers, and self-employed professionals.
A recent analysis by STEMGuyana founder and Executive Director, Dr. Karen Abrams warned that Guyana’s education system remains rooted in a colonial model “built to produce employees, not founders.”
Abrams argued that the system rewards “memorisation over problem-identification” and continues to train students for traditional employment rather than innovation and independent enterprise.
Parag appeared to echo some of those concerns.
“We need to rethink whether we’re teaching children to understand mathematics or teaching them to memorise just to pass an exam,” the minister said.
“If you prepare them to understand mathematics, then even if a curveball is thrown, it’s not going to throw them off.”
The minister also acknowledged that many students develop psychological barriers toward mathematics from an early age.
“For many students, from the time you hear mathematics, there’s already a block in your head,” she said.
The ministry now intends to link mathematics readiness to literacy development, introducing national literacy assessments in Grades Two and Four to identify struggling students earlier.
“The idea behind that is by Grade Four, all of our children must know how to read properly and comprehend well,” Parag explained.
“If they can’t do that, it means they can’t answer exam questions. It means they cannot reason, which is what mathematics is – reasoning.”
The taskforce has proposed several interventions, including national mathematics competitions, mathematics clubs in schools, weekly evaluations, rewards programmes, and classroom “maths walls” displaying formulas and theories.
Still, questions remain over whether another taskforce will solve structural problems that have persisted for decades.
Guyana has implemented previous mathematics improvement programmes with limited success, while concerns continue to grow over the country’s broader educational direction and its ability to retain skilled citizens.
According to recent data cited by Abrams, approximately 39 percent of Guyanese citizens live abroad, while a 2026 United Nations Development Programme report found that nearly 90 percent of tertiary-educated Guyanese have migrated overseas.
The brain drain raises concerns that even where educational gains occur, Guyana continues losing much of its skilled human capital to foreign economies.
The debate also revives scrutiny of education policy changes following the PPP’s return to office in 1992, including the shift away from critical thinking approaches to learning, the dismantling of community high schools, and the reintroduction of tuition fees at the University of Guyana — decisions many educators believe narrowed opportunities for working-class Guyanese while weakening pathways for independent thinking, upward mobility, and broad-based national development.
Despite Guyana ranking relatively high regionally on some education indicators, persistent weaknesses in mathematics and literacy continue to raise concerns about whether the country is preparing citizens to lead and innovate within the new economy or simply occupy lower-tier roles within it.
“I want this to be a new beginning for mathematics,” Minister Parag declared.
