Smart Classroom opened at Queen’s College

– 20 more expected to be launched within weeks across Guyana

Guyana’s second smart classroom was on Wednesday opened at Queen’s College by Education Minister Priya Manickchand.

The classroom, which is the second of its kind in the public education sector, will not only benefit Queen’s College but will be used to reach students in other secondary schools across Guyana who can benefit from lessons which they may not be able to receive in their respective schools.

Minister o Manickchand said that the intention is to eventually have a smart classroom rolled out in every high school across Guyana. She said that the Ministry of Education is on track with delivering 20 more such classrooms within the coming weeks.

She said that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how important technology is to the education sector. “COVID has underscored how much we need advances and additions to our traditional chalk and talk and it would have come in very useful if we had these features in the classroom but we cannot wring our hands for what we don’t have but we must recognize it as a failure and move on aggressively to rolling out these classrooms across the country,” the Minister said as she encouraged persons to see the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to do better for the country by improving systems and implementing initiatives to improve the education sector.

She told members of the staff and administration of Queen’s College that they now have a duty to share knowledge and information using the smart classroom to as many students and teachers as possible.

The Education Minister noted that the smart classroom will also be made available to Master Teachers who are not attached to the school to use the facility to teach students from various schools virtually particularly if those students don’t have a particular subject teacher attached to the institution or whether they need additional assistance with a topic or subject area.

President of the Parent Teachers’ Association Kwabina Griffith said that the school is excited about the classroom stating that this is the direction that education must go. Principal of the school, Jackie Ralph echoed similar sentiments.

During Wednesday’s launch, Ms. Dianne Henry taught an English B lesson while engaging students physically in the smart classroom and those that were at home.