Students return to school with much optimism

[www.inewsguyana.com] – It’s Monday January 6, 2014 – the first official school day of the New Year – and iNews took its cameras to the streets and in classrooms where the order of the day was “work”.

Because of the many red tapes that exists with respect to media workers entering government schools, this news agency’s visits were restricted to schools which are privately operated.

Among the schools visited were the Marian Academy, Colaaco School and the ISA Islamic School. Today, at the Marian Academy the teachers were busy bringing the little ones up to speed with the day, date and year. They were heard reciting the year in particular since all of them would be very familiar with the year 2013. It was time to make them aware that they were in a new year.

Over at Thomas Lands, the stop was at the Colaaco School. Before the class really started the children were involved in a bit of physical exercise before entering the classroom.

The final stop was on East Street ISA School where class was in full session. There was not time for hesitation as classes began on time and teachers and students were down to work as early as 9:30 hrs.  In one classroom, a student communicated to his peers in Arabic while the teacher sat listening.

The Marian Academy is administered by Christians but accepts children from across the political, racial and ethnic divide. The same approach is adopted for the teachers at the school.

The Colaaco School is run by the African Cultural and Development Association “ACDA” and attracts students from other ethnic groups also.

The IAS Islamic school is run by the Guyana Islamic Trust and its makeup is similar to the other two schools. [Leroy Smith]