Education in Guyana is provided largely by the Government of Guyana, through the Ministry of Education and its arms in the ten different regions of the country. Guyana's education system is a legacy from its time as British Guiana, and is similar to that of the other anglophone member states of the Caribbean Community, which are affiliated to the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). School curricula, funding, standards and other policies are set by the central government and implemented through the Ministry of Education and related agencies. The Education System is divided into eleven districts, ten of which correspond to the national administrative and geographical regions of the country, while the capital, Georgetown, is treated as a separate education district, district 11.UNESCO National Report on Higher Education (Guyana), http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001315/131595e.pdf With 8.3% of its GDP spent on education, Guyana sits with Cuba, Iceland, Denmark and Botswana as among the few countries with top spending on education.CIA World Factbook - Education Expenditures
The statutory age for beginning compulsory education is five years nine months, and students are required to attend school until age 16. However, children who do not meet the statutory age to begin school are sometimes enrolled early or generally attend some kind of pre-school. To meet the requirements for compulsory education students generally attend public schools, but there are a few private schools which offer education at one or all stages of learning; home-schooling is virtually non-existent in Guyana. The academic year usually begins in September and ends in July of the following year and with the exception of President's College students have a five-hour school day.
Outside of the private sector, free education from nursery to university was the norm in Guyana until the mid-1990s. The current provision of education is subsidised from nursery through secondary schools, with students now having to pay for tuition at some tertiary institutions. This development reflected a change from the 1970s when Guyana became a socialist-inspired Cooperative Republic. The country's educational policy in the 1970s was intended to broaden access to education, as before that education beyond primary school was expensive and designed primarily for a small elite. In the 1970s single-sex schools were made co-educational; private and parochial schools were incorporated into the public system.Education Watch-Advancement of Education in Guyana:A Case Study, http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2003/issue3/0303p47.asp
The reform which occurred was part of a wider phenomenon in a post-colonial CARICOM aiming to provide an education that reflected the full heritage and aspirations of independent states. Today, as part of its obligations to the CXC, Guyana's educational specifications and assessment procedures are bound by regional guidelines.Caribbean Examinations Council Policy Document, http://www.cxc.org/section.asp?Sec=3&SSec=10&Info=79 Students wear uniforms to school.
Guyana has a reading literacy rate at 92% of the population over age 15.Guyana Bureau of Statistics - Education and Training, http://www.statisticsguyana.gov.gy/pubs/Chapter5_Education_Training.pdf Despite this high level of reading literacy, significant portions of the Guyanese population have functional literacy difficulties resulting in a lack of employability and other socio-economic disadvantages; this has caused government and charitable agencies to push education as a tool in poverty reduction.
Guyana is one of the highest ranked developing countries in the Education Index of the United Nations Human Development Report. With a score of 0.943 on the Education Index, its overall rank is 37, but ranks third in the Caribbean after Cuba and Barbados, and second in South America after Argentina.UNDP Human Development Report, Education Index, 2007/2008, http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/7.html According to DFID, Guyana has achieved the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education but continues to struggle with the provision of increased access to satisfactory secondary education.DFID Case study-Improving access to Guyana's secondary schools, http://www.dfid.gov.uk/casestudies/files/south-america/guyana-education.asp As one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, instruction in Guyana's schools makes little or no use of instructional technologies such as interactive whiteboards or other multimedia tools. Indeed, many schools are short on basic resources, especially in the areas of science and technology, and this sometimes puts students at a disadvantage when compared to their counterparts in the region.
As part of a continuous effort to tackle inequalities and inefficiencies in the system, the parliament of Guyana has been debating and redrafting the 2007 Education bill. The bill moves Guyana closer to a comprehensive education system, but retains the use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure, despite Guyana's obligations to international conventions such as the UN Rights of the Child.Help and Shelter: Submissions on the Draft Education Bill, http://www.sdnp.org.gy/hands/
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) finds that Guyana is fulfilling only 85.0% of what it should be fulfilling for the right to education based on the country's level of income. HRMI breaks down the right to education by looking at the rights to both primary education and secondary education. While taking into consideration Guyana's income level, the nation is achieving 84.7% of what should be possible based on its resources (income) for primary education and 85.3% for secondary education.
Structure
Level or Grade Typical age Preschool Various optional programs, such as Head Start Under 6Pre-Kindergarten 4-5 Kindergarten 5-6 Primary School Grade 1 6–7 Grade 2 7–8 Grade 3 8–9 Grade 4 9–10 Grade 5 10–11 Grade 6 11–12 Secondary School Grade 7 12–13 Grade 8 13–14 Grade 9 14-15 Grade 10 15-16 Grade 11 16-17 Grade 12 17–18 Grade 13 18–19 Post-secondary education Tertiary education (College or University) Ages vary Vocational education Ages vary Graduate education Adult education
Nursery school
Nursery education in Guyana is not compulsory, though most children attend them. Nursery or kindergarten schools, sometimes referred to as play schools are provided by the government as well as private entities. It is essentially a formalised extension of early childhood education and is available to children who are age 3 years 9 months at the end of the first term of the school year.Guyana National Development Strategy, Chapter 18, http://www.ndsguyana.org/document.asp The education section of Guyana's National Development Strategy (NDS), chapter 18, further indicates that the nursery education programme is a two-year programme which focuses on child development.
The introduction of a national nursery education programme occurred in 1976 as part of larger education reforms in the country. The programme is delivered in specially designed nursery schools or in primary schools. Some nursery schools function as feeder programmes for primary schools which are seen as high achievers - gaining entrance into those schools inevitably becomes competitive and sometimes exclusive.
Nursery schools in Guyana since the 1980s have faced serious challenges such as adequate numbers of trained teachers as well as adequate facilities. However, as early childhood education takes on a higher level of importance in development and poverty eradication, efforts are afoot to address those challenges. UNICEF is one body that is involved in addressing nursery education challenges as it is a major funder of initiatives which further childhood development in Guyana and elsewhere.UNESCO, Education for All Assessment - Guyana Country Report, http://www.unesco.org/education/wef/countryreports/guyana/rapport_2.html
Primary school
Primary education is compulsory and requires attendance for six years. Over the last five years education in Guyana has been undergoing continuous reform. The six-year programme is no longer organised as "Preparatory A and B, and Standards 1 to 4" - it is now Grades 1 to 6. Part of this reform has meant that the Secondary School Entrance Education (SSEE) 11+ or common entrance exam is no longer used to award places in secondary schools, instead primary school students now take the Grade Six (Level 6) assessment to gain a secondary school place.Stabroek News editorial, Grade Six Assessment, http://www.stabroeknews.com/2007/news/local/03/04/grade-six-assessment/ One of the objectives of this reform is to tackle the problem of overcrowding at oversubscribed schools.
There are essentially three types of primary schools: the first and most common one is the primary school which provides a typical primary education - from Grades 1 to 6, then there is the primary school which has a primary and a secondary department, and the primary school which has a nursery and secondary department.
The curriculum of primary schools in Guyana is designed to impart basic literacy and numeracy skills, and also aims to prepare students for secondary education. This literacy and numeracy training is complemented with lessons in Social Studies and Integrated Science. Though Guyana is considered to have met its Millennium Development Goal for universal primary education, the challenge for primary education remains equity of access in terms of curriculum delivery, quality and relevance.UNICEF Guyana website, http://www.unicef.org/guyana/children_5031.htm Equity of access is a problem largely as a result of how the primary education system is structured, as well as uneven resource availability based on geography - that is, schools on Guyana's coasts and in urban areas tend to be better resourced than schools in the hinterland or in rural areas.
Secondary school
Secondary schooling in Guyana is tiered. There are senior secondary schools, which tend to be more academic in orientation, junior secondary schools, Community High Schools and Secondary Departments of Primary Schools. Since the current reforms are phased, students who perform well in their primary school assessments are awarded places at senior secondary schools such as Bishops' High School, St. Stanislaus College, St. Joseph High School, St. Rose's High School, President's College and Queen's College rather than a school in their geographic catchment area.
For the most part, the curriculum offered in secondary schools is that of the CXC geared towards preparing students to leave secondary school with subject passes at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) or the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). CSEC is equivalent to the UK's General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and CAPE to A-levels. The senior and junior secondary schools prepare students for the CSEC and CAPE qualifications, but the Community High Schools and secondary departments prepare students for the Secondary Schools Proficiency Examination (SSPE); students who do well on this exam may transfer to senior or junior secondary schools. Students attending senior or junior secondary schools attend from Grade 7 to Grade 11 for CSEC and move on to Grade 12 if interested in the CAPE qualification. Community High and students in secondary departments of primary schools, attend from Grade 7 to Grade 10. GCSE and A-level examinations are still offered in some schools but they are expected to be phased out as part of the educational reforms system.