Meticulous measures are currently being considered by officials within the education system to harness disturbing dropout rate trends that appear to be prevalent in public secondary schools. And measures, according to Minister of Education Shaik Baksh, must begin in earnest at the primary level, failing which students will be forced to enter a six-year programme,NFL Jerseys Cheap, which has been streamlined by his Ministry.“It is no use transitioning these people to the secondary schools because they leave; they drop out. And that is one of the challenges facing secondary education,Jerseys NFL Wholesale,” the Minister highlighted. He revealed that the dropout rate between grades seven to nine has become alarming, a situation which must be reversed with much urgency.“We have to turn that around, we have to keep the students in the school so that the completion rates can go up significantly,” Minister Baksh added.And the very demanding task, according to him, will undoubtedly be bestowed upon teachers within the system. Teachers,Wholesale Jerseys From China, he said,Cheap Adidas NHL Jerseys, have the ability to identify the students who are most likely to drop out of the system. With such knowledge, he noted that teachers would be in a position to solicit the support of parents to aid needful intervening measures. “You have to call in the parents and encourage them (students) to stay and have the interventions. I am appealing to you (teachers) firstly to ensure that something happens at the secondary schools as it is now happening at the primary school with all of the Fast Track Literacy initiative, after hours .”According to the minister, the efforts are being directed to the weak students in primary schools with the intent of bringing them up to an acceptable standard. And there is a growing need, he said, for similar measures to be extended to the Secondary Schools.In primary schools, the Ministry has introduced a Grade Four Literacy Certificate and Minister Baksh explained that it is expected that students will attain no less than 50 percent of the recommended percentage. In addition, he revealed that schools with poor performances will be published in the national newspapers.“I am giving notice now, they will have to work hard and ensure they get the pass rate not even 75 percent but 50 percent…”And should students fall below the 50 percent pass rate they will have to retake the assessment and be continually monitored, Minister Baksh said. All improvement following will be duly recorded and students will receive commendation, he added.Without improvement measures at the primary level, the Minister asserted that there will be difficulties in realising the requisite results at the secondary level.It was just recently that the Minister revealed that students who do not reach the requisite standard required after participating in Mathematics and English at the National Grade Nine Assessment should not be allowed to write the said subjects at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) level. In fact, he revealed that such students would have to wait another year having taken remedial programmes or they would have to seek the services of private institutions.He revealed that the Ministry of Education is currently on a mission to review the Grade Nine Assessment, a move which has been prompted by the discovery that the assessment is not being used in the same way as in the primary level Grade Two and Four Assessments.? Baksh made this declaration when he addressed a gathering of head teachers.He emphasized that the Grade Nine Assessment must be used by the schools primarily as a diagnostic tool. “You must look at the Grade Nine passes and do something about it just as at the Grade Four in Primary Schools and devise school-based strategies. Some of you may have been doing this already but a lot are not,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, it is not being used.”The Grade Nine Assessment, he explained,Wholesale Cheap Jerseys, should be used in the same way as the Grade Four Assessment to be the diagnostic instrument to do the remediation at Grade 10. “…so at Grade 10 the slow learners, that is those students getting less than 50 percent, not in all the subjects, but in Mathematics and English…We will have to have programmes in the school at Grade 10 to ensure that at the end of Grade 10 the performances goes up.”Having participated in the programmes, students will be given another test to ensure they would have reached the requisite standards, Baksh added.

By Abena RockcliffeShould the government of Guyana go through with its plan to take an advance payment from US oil giant Exxon Mobil, it will lose its good standing to negotiate in the best interest of the nation. The government will be in Exxon’s pocket and the company will get the upper hand in negotiations.Opposition Leader, Bharrat JagdeoThis is the view expressed by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo at a press conference, yesterday, at Freedom House.Jagdeo shunned ideas expressed by Minister of Governance, Raphael Trotman, to the effect that taking the money and using it for infrastructural developments will prove highly beneficial for an underdeveloped country such as Guyana.Trotman was quoted in sections of the media as saying that Exxon’s President will meet with the Guyana government in January and negotiations will be made then.The former President said that while improved infrastructure is always commended, taking the money before oil production starts can prove disastrous.Jagdeo also said that the government is making a big mistake in counting its egg before it is hatched by making plans for future oil wealth even before operations begin.Further, Jagdeo said that the government is sending too many mixed signals with regards to its plans for oil wealth. On one hand government is saying that it will save the money in a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) and on the other,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, it is saying that it wants to take an advance—money that has not even been secured—to carry out developmental works.Jagdeo said that all the mix up probably stems from ignorance and confusion within the government’s ranks.He added, “We hear Trotman saying he wants to create a SWF. I do not know if he has gone through this carefully but a SWF is created by income; basically if you have balance of payment surpluses, which we do not have. It is created for fiscal surpluses which we do not have and it is created to sterilize excesses from export receipts from mineral sectors.”A SWF is used to invest abroad in financial assets so that it can maintain the value of the portfolio. Both Jagdeo and Trotman pointed out that such a fund can also come in handy if there is ever a budget shortfall. An SWF prevents the Dutch Disease.The former president noted that the government indeed announced plans to enter revenues derived from minerals in the fund but said that the bulk of the money to be entered into the fund has to come from future oil proceeds.Minister of Governance, Raphael TrotmanJagdeo said that while government is saying that it will save future oil proceeds it is ready to borrow from what is yet to be secured.“But in one voice Trotman says we are trying to save the money for a rainy day and then he says we are going to ask Exxon Mobil to give us some money in advance. Now how more contradictory can you get….. we have not yet been even given the oil proceeds to save but he now wants to spend it today,Cheap NFL Jerseys, money that we do not have?” asked Jagdeo.The former president said that such philosophies land countries in serious debt.? Of course in this regard Jagdeo had to make reference to the debt the PPP inherited in 1992.“He wants to borrow against future income that we are not even sure will materialize,’ said Jagdeo.He explained that Exxon Mobil still has to prove the reserve and drill more wells before the company can get into the actual production.Jagdeo said,Cheap Basketball Jerseys, “We do not know when they prove the reserves what they will find. We do not know what it will cost them to extract the oil per barrel, the cost of production, whether it will be above the world market price which is currently so low. We do not know if they will proceed immediately or shelve the project indefinitely.”The Opposition leader said that even in the absence,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, such confirmations “they are making it look like this money is on the table saying that we must prepare for this unprecedented wealth that will come our way. We are not sure what will happen in the future.”He said that if the government “borrows” money and then things do not materialize the government will find itself in a pickle.Jagdeo pointed out that, government, in looking to borrow from Exxon,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, has not even exhausted avenues to access funding from multilateral agencies. “You haven’t used the Norwegian Fund and you are going to go and borrow from Exxon Mobil.”“That puts you in Exxon’s pocket. How can they then sit and negotiate with Exxon on an equal footing?”He said, too,NFL Jerseys China, that? if this materializes, “when the? PPP resumes office in four years or so we will be forced to consider w