Some 173 students who placed in the country’s top one per cent at the 2013 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) examinations were presented with laptop computers on Wednesday by President Donald Ramotar.
A total of 16,811 students wrote the examination in March of this year. When the results were disclosed in early June, the president promised to award every child within the top one per cent with a laptop computer.
President Ramotar told the students as they embark on another stage of their lives, that this is just the beginning and they have a long way to go. He stated that with this initiative, they are enabling students to get up to par technologically.
“We want to ensure that you do not flounder along the way… you will be challenged by many things, but you need to be successful, to be multi-skilled and multidisciplined… we want you to be able to be competent in using the most modern tools in the world,” the president said.
Equal opportunities
He noted that new technology enables a person to stay in the most rural areas of Guyana and still work in any part of the world due to the advancement of information and communication technology.
The president disclosed that the administration is working along with the University of Guyana to get degree programmes available online.
President Ramotar explained that in a multiethnic and multicultural society such as Guyana, students need to ensure that there are equal opportunities for everyone, noting that there is no better way to do so than by providing equal opportunities in education.
He stressed that education plays a critical role in getting a country out of all the adversities it will face.
“In the struggle against all the injustices we have to confront, I see education as that hook that can take us out of poverty and take us to higher levels that I dream our country can go to and when I look at all these bright, young faces, my confidence is once more strengthened that we can be a developed country in the not-so-distant future with your help,” he stated.
The president urged students to study hard and not be distracted by the various elements of society that will steer their attention from what is important.
He further encouraged the students to not only strive to be good professionally but to have a social conscience and help others.
Think big
Education Minister Priya Manickchand told the students that they are lucky to be living in a time when they have all these opportunities available to them. “This is the beginning of a great life for you… because we have great opportunities that people would not have had before and so you have opportunities to be world leaders, and that’s what we are preparing you for, to be world leaders and you should think big, think about changing the world,” Manickchand urged the children.
She told them that this milestone is just a small one among the many that will come in their lives if they continue to work hard, advising them to make themselves into persons who will celebrate successes even bigger than this.
The minister acknowledged that there was still much work to be done in the education system, highlighting that improving the quality of classroom teaching was a priority.
Minister Manickchand noted that she is pleased that Guyana had attained the Number Two Millennium Goal: universal access to primary education.
