The results for the 2019 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) is slated to be announced on Wednesday, July 3, 2019. This is according to information released by the Ministry of Education.
Last year when the results were announced, it was private schools topping the list. Naila Rahaman, with a perfect score of 529, was a pupil of the Westfield Preparatory. She was followed by Arthur Roberts of the New Guyana School with a score of 525 and Kaydee Ali of Success Elementary who scored 524 marks.
While the news for public schools was daunting, there was even more daunting news for more individual candidates. This was in light of the disclosure that a total of 2,404 of the 14,000 odd candidates who participated failed to meet the benchmark to allow for placement. This was disclosed by Senior Education Officer within the Education Ministry, Ms Carol Benn.
However, Benn, who is the Coordinator of a special initiative designed to cater to the upliftment of these candidates, said that through the Ministry’s six-year transitional programme these candidates were slated to be integrated into Grade Seven.
“Instead of leaving the children back at the primary school level, we put them over to a secondary school and we have this special programme for them because they are not yet ready for the Grade Seven class,” said Benn during a recent interview with this publication.
Explaining how the programme works, Benn said, “We put them over to a secondary school and instead of spending five years, they would spend six years because of this special one year programme.”
However, in order to address the shortcomings that were evident from last year’s results, the Ministry had mobilised its technical officers, teachers, and parents to redouble their efforts with the view of implementing measures to reverse the troubling trend. As such, ministry officials have since shared their optimism that when the results are released next month they will reflect improved performances across the board.
