Former Education Minister Priya Manickchand, in giving the charge to the 2018 Westfield Prep graduating class, challenged students to reject prejudices that have almost become part of our culture.
Westfield Prep produced Guyana’s top student at the 2018 National Grade Six Assessment.
Manickchand told the graduants that they will be met daily with outdated views, sometimes from right at home, or from school, or from the community. These outdated views, she said, will insinuate that one ethnicity is superior to another, or people who worship in a particular way are strange, or that children from rich homes are better.
She advised the students that at each and every time they encounter those anachronistic views, they must confront them and gently but firmly set the makers of those statements right.
She told the students that they have a special responsibility to be educated, inform themselves about the issues affecting Guyana, and dedicate themselves to working to make our country better than it is now. She encouraged them to be fully involved in both the academic and extracurricular life of the high schools they would be attending.
On March 28 and 29, grade six students from both public and private primary schools across the country wrote the NGSA examination so as to complete their primary education programme and gain entrance into the secondary education system. They were tested in the areas of Mathematics, English, Social Studies and Science.
Just one week ago, the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) results were announced, with Nalia Rahaman of Westfield Prep securing a perfect score of 529 marks at the examination. According to the Education Ministry, this was the first time ever that a perfect score was achieved by a Guyanese student at the NGSA.
Meanwhile, along with the good performance, a gender gap was observed, with females acquiring more spots in the top one percent when compared to males. This year’s examination also saw 14,145 students sitting the examination, with 104 females out of the 174 students being placed within the top one percent.
Additionally, a performance gap has also been present between the coastal and hinterland schools.
