Children with cancer being taught in hospital

The Ministry of Education has provided two teachers to work with Cancer patient at the Children’s Ward of the Georgetown Public Hospital in order to ensure that they can still continue their education while undergoing treatment. This is being with support from the Perwinkle Club.

According to Chief Education Officer (ag), Ministry of Education, Marcel Hudson, this intervention is among several that the Ministry is undertaking to ensure children with special needs are educated.

According to Hudson there is a unit at the National Center for Educational Resource Development (NCERD) which provides testing for dyslexia, instructions on the needs of these students and on how the Ministry can support.

In addition, the Ministry has also been working with the Ministry of Health to screen students at an early age, for hearing and seeing disabilities that may hinder their performance in the school system. Hudson said that the ministry has been supplying the spectacles and hearing aids to children who need these aids.

The ministry has also provided the David Rose School for the disabled with a bus take the students to and from home to school.

He explained that the Ministry has been working to ensure children with various disabilities have equitable access to education. “These children have the potential, it is just that they have some mitigating circumstances. That does not mean that an avenue or outlet should not be provided for them to be successful in life,” Hudson said.

The government has been working to reform the education system so as to better prepare them to play an active role in Guyana’s development.