Out-Of-School Children Initiative being conducted in collaboration with UNICEF

The Out-Of-School Children Initiative, two-day Workshop began today at the Regency Suites in Georgetown with a specific aim  to generate a document which will study the problem of out-of-school children at risk of dropping out from three angles.

These include the following:

1. Who and where excluded children are
2. The barriers and causes from exclusion and
3. Policies and strategies to remove these barriers

The workshop is being facilitated with the support of an expert from a consulting organization in Argentina, which provides technical assistance to the implementation of the study.

Deputy representative, UNICEF Guyana and Suriname, Paolo March highlighted that many out-of-school children are left behind for various reasons such as bullying, poverty and disability among other factors, which UNICEF will assist Guyana in through the Education Ministry to determine.

The UNICEF rep also applauded Guyana for its achievement of universal primary education.

Deputy Chief Education Officer, Donna Chapman said there are other factors apart from societal ills that affect children’s attendance at school which can be attributed  to inefficiencies in the Education System.

She pointed to the School Feeding and Uniform Programmes. But while these were highlighted as good initiatives, Chapman stressed that more needs to be done, hence the timeliness of the study.

Also delivering remarks was Permanent Secretary of the Education Ministry, Delma Nedd who pointed out that Guyana is challenged by the lack of statistics as it relates to school drop outs and in this regard has embarked on a systematic research.

She admonished all stakeholders to get on board since there is much to be achieved collectively.