The pandemic is shifting sixth grade education in Guyana for years to come

Sixth grade students, parents and educators discuss the adjustment to online learning and new exam and teaching formats

Originally written in April 2022

Since March 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted education delivery worldwide. Between the suspension of in-person classes, the scramble to shift online and the lack of access to internet connectivity and electronic devices, students and teachers have struggled to adjust their learning and teaching methods, respectively.

In Guyana, some 14,000 sixth grade students were left in a great state of confusion as their schools closed just weeks before they were scheduled to take the exams that would determine their high school placement. Each year, the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) tests sixth grade students across the country on their math, English, science and social studies skills with their scores assigning them to public secondary schools. Now set during a pandemic, students and teachers face an increased level of pressure and stress surrounding the exams.

For Padmini Jewan, sixth grade teacher at Dharmic Rama Krishna Primary School, online classes were unheard of and the thought of not being able to teach her students face-to-face was troubling. “It was a complete change and I wasn’t for it,” said Jewan. “I thought that the children should still be allowed to go to school for the short [period of] time [before the NGSA.]”

But change was inevitable and Jewan quickly had to come up with a new teaching approach. Collecting the names and phone numbers of her students from the school’s head teacher, Jewan took to WhatsApp, creating a class group with the help of her daughters.

The learning curve was steep–she had never used the messaging platform before, some of her students had difficulty accessing the classes and the initial group was not restricted which meant that anyone could message it, causing dozens of notifications to flood participants’ phones. Content-wise, these classes were straightforward revision periods. Six mornings a week, Jewan posted a different set of problems to the group with clear instructions. Her students would respond with their answers and she’d mark them and leave comments where necessary, jumping onto a WhatsApp video call later in the day to explain the answers to them.

When the new school year started, Jewan, alongside many other teachers across the country, began using video conferencing tools like Zoom and Google Classroom.

Keeping a class of 10 to 11-year-olds focused and involved over a screen brought its own set of challenges for Cheryl Semple Drakes, sixth grade teacher at the School of the Nations. Some students had issues with their cameras, some with their microphones and some took advantage of the Annotate feature while Semple Drakes was sharing her screen on Zoom, choosing to scribble on the screen as opposed to writing notes in their books. “I think for [the students], it was just an experience,” said Semple Drakes. “They would have heard other people talking about [these Zoom features] and they wanted to try them.”

Back when she was a student at New Guyana Primary School, Deja Datt’s classes were done over Google Classroom, a tool that took her some time to understand. “Using the platform for the first time, I got confused about adding new classes, because each class had a code I had to put in and it took me a little while to learn how to control it, how to archive classes and how to delete them,” said Datt.

Moreover, certain topics, like profits and losses in math or phrases and clauses in English, were difficult for Datt to wrap her head around in an online format and was made even more challenging as her teacher wasn’t able to give equal attention to each student’s problem areas. “When you're not able to fully understand topics that you know will probably come in the exam, it gets a little bit worrying,” said Datt. “But I managed to overcome that with the help of my mom.”

To take account of the difficulty of teaching students online, the Ministry of Education of Guyana decided to reduce the NGSA curriculum to mainly fifth grade content and just a few sixth grade topics in the 2020-2021 academic year. “We had almost covered everything [on the syllabus] when the topics were adjusted, so it wasn't a problem for me to make that change,” said Jewan. “I think it was a blessing in disguise because the children could not understand some of the topics online.”

The Ministry of Education also amped up the production and dissemination of educational content through TV, radio and online platforms. Over 200,000 worksheets for each grade in the primary level were shared with schools across the country. The Guyana Learning Channel expanded to produce daily scheduled content for students between nursery and secondary levels. The channel also upgraded its signal power and is steadily increasing its reach across Guyana.

NGSA Booster, a program dedicated to covering each topic in the exam curriculum, was made available in May 2021 on the Learning Channel’s TV station, YouTube channel and Facebook page. In June 2021, the Learning Channel launched a game show, Whiz Kids, aimed at helping sixth grade students prepare for their upcoming exams. When the head of the Learning Channel Anieshaw Mohamed saw a video of the Education Minister Priya Manickchand quizzing her niece in a rapid-fire format, she was instantly intrigued by the teaching approach.

“I like creative methods of teaching and I have my own kids, aged five and seven, as my personal reviewers and critics as to what resonates with kids so I knew this would've been a hit,” said Mohamed. “I wanted to build on that and develop a show that would engage children writing NGSA in a similar manner and outside of the routine classroom lectures we've grown so accustomed to.” Whiz Kids was developed soon after, placing sixth grade students from different primary schools head to head in a rapid-fire game show on the subjects they would eventually be tested on in the NGSA.

“I've had the opportunity to speak to many of the top NGSA students that expressed so much appreciation for Whiz Kids and the NGSA Booster,” said Mohamed. “One particular student that gained a spot at Queen’s College, the country’s highest-ranking high school, said she watched the Booster on repeat every single day and it helped her so much in areas where she was a bit weak.”

While the channel continues to make an effort to cover each topic on the curriculum, there is also a commitment to producing content that explores beyond the syllabus. From A Day in Life, a show educating children about different careers, to Issa Guyanese Ting, a program about folktales and proverbs, Mohamed and her team aspire to provide students with a holistic educational experience within this unique learning environment.

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As concerns surrounding COVID-19 grew, the ministry struggled to find an appropriate set of dates to hold these exams, postponing them from March to July, and then to August 2021. “I was frustrated, alongside the students and their parents, wondering when these exams would be held,” said Jewan.

Datt had mixed feelings about these changes. “Sometimes I was scared [wondering] what was going on and then other times, I was happy that I had more time to study,” said Datt.

Despite the measures taken by the ministry, one issue that became quickly apparent was the digital divide. In some private institutions like the School of the Nations, it was more common for students to have access to devices and internet connections. “As far as I know, all [of my] students had access to the internet and were using cell phones or tablets,” said Semple Drakes.

For students within lower socioeconomic brackets, this was less likely to be the case.

Grace Joseph, mother of former Vive-La-Force Primary School students Rebekah and Rachel Joseph, found it particularly difficult to help her twin daughters transition to an online set-up.

“When I had to get devices for the children, it was a bit challenging because we had already budgeted ourselves for basic needs in the household,” said Joseph. The coronavirus pandemic brought extra expenses that she had not previously considered.

Living in a small agricultural village on the outskirts of the West Bank Demerara's main road meant there was a lack of internet access, with only a community hub serving the villagers. To ensure her daughters didn’t fall behind in their classes, Joseph collected textbooks from the school and took to teaching them herself, utilizing the GLC’s television content when applicable.

Though the community hub provided free internet access, it was perpetually crowded, some distance away from their home and Joseph was rarely able to find the time to take her daughters there.

“Our neighbour bought an extension to bring out the signal [from the hub] so the children who are nearby could get it,” said Joseph. But the signal was spotty and oftentimes, Joseph’s daughters found themselves disconnected from their classes and having to rely on their mother’s explanation of concepts they had missed.

Recognizing the need to overcome this growing divide, Harvard University student Shawn Shivdat created the non-profit organization CaribEd in March 2020, to provide free educational resources to sixth grade students in his father’s home country of Guyana. “I started pulling all-nighters to write exam preparation packets which I shared with family and friends in Guyana and after a few weeks, friends of mine at Harvard and other universities reached out to join the effort,” said Shivdat.

Partnering with national newspapers, such as Guyana Chronicle, and non-profit organizations, such as Authentic Caribbean Foundation and Blossoms of Guyana, Shivdat and his team worked to publish, print and distribute these resources to students across the country preparing to write the NGSA. “We don’t limit our access to any specific schools and everyone has access via our website,” said Shivdat. “But we try to focus on areas with limited internet access during print and distribution campaigns.”

The response has been nothing short of overwhelmingly supportive and positive, according to Shivdat. “Most people realize this is a really important issue and are willing to step in to help in the U.S. and in Guyana,” said Shivdat. “One of the most memorable messages was from a parent in the interior [region] who did not have internet access, who reached out to us with her daughter’s stellar score after prepping with our materials for a year.”

Now, the CaribEd team comprises over 70 cumulative students and provides worksheets and course material to sixth grade students within the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC)’s 16 participating countries. They are looking to expand and create resources for those with little to no internet access preparing for other standardized tests in the Caribbean.

According to a 2020 UNICEF report, Education on Hold, while three-quarters of children in private schools across Latin America and the Caribbean are able to access distance learning, the same is true for only half of the children attending public schools. In Guyana, at least 1000 primary school students from the public school system dropped out by September 2020 as a result of the government-imposed school closures, according to Manickchand.

“The evidence—qualitative, speculative, and anecdotal—suggests that the learning deficit from the period of remote learning is significant, due to the inherent limitations of the medium, lack of connectivity, unavailability of devices, electricity outages and unsupportive home environments,” a 2021 Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) report states.

Recent learning assessments are proving that the pandemic-induced learning loss is immense and inequitable, according to a 2021 joint UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank report. Students within the primary school level in Brazil, Pakistan, rural India, South Africa and Mexico have shown a reduced understanding of math and reading. Furthermore, students who are girls and/or came from low-income backgrounds disproportionately experienced these learning losses. “This generation of students now risks losing $17 trillion in lifetime earnings in present value as a result of school closures, or the equivalent of 14 percent of today’s global GDP,” the report suggests, adding that children living in Learning Poverty will rise from 50 to 70 per cent given the length of lockdowns and varying quality of distance education.

However, the pandemic’s impact on education is much more than fluctuating grades and learning losses, the CAPRI report says. It is the effect on attendance, ability to develop emotional and critical thinking skills, involvement in physical and leisure activities, social interaction without screens and the attainment of self-actualization in which the students recognize their positions on continuing education, entering the job market and becoming contributing members of society. These are indicators that the report says will take years to fully measure the impacts.

Yet, it is clear that without access to quality education, children run the risk of not being able to fully participate in society and exercise their rights. A 2021 Human Rights Watch study goes on to comment that not only does the loss in education lead to a loss in future employment of such children but also may increase the likelihood of them being exploited through child marriages, child labour, violence and trafficking.

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The restriction of movement, reduced social interaction with peers and lack of traditional collaborative teaching methods have undoubtedly affected students’ mental health and social and emotional development. Though initially, some may have enjoyed the extra time with family and the less structured schedules, the prolonged lockdown became stifling for many, according to a 2021 Center on Reinventing Public Education report.

“Just as physical education promotes healthy lifestyle choices with long term health benefits, social-emotional learning helps students build foundational skills to navigate life, such as self-knowledge, resilience and collaborative problem solving,” according to the report.

While there is limited knowledge of the long-term psychological effects of the pandemic on children, previous studies have indicated that children who experience disasters may suffer from greater stress because of the lack of development of proper emotional reactions and coping techniques, according to a 2021 study.

In an online setting, many students struggle to feel motivated and engaged in their classes. For Annabelle Rambaran, a former student at Dharmic Rama Krishna Primary School, issues within her personal life led her to start losing care and interest in completing all of her work. “[I] didn't feel the need to do as much work because it's online and you have everything there,” said Rambaran.

Furthermore, interacting with her classmates became less natural and she began distancing herself from them. “I [developed] social anxiety and didn’t put my camera on at all,” said Rambaran.

The impact of the pandemic on students’ social interactions was evident to Claire James, sixth grade teacher at Mae’s Primary. “In school, they would have had more time to interact with each other on a daily basis [while] online, that time is somewhat limited [as] they go from subject to subject, sometimes [having to constantly] start new Zoom sessions so their social skills were somewhat affected,” said James.

Understanding the impact of this issue, James incorporated a ‘gyaff’ or talk session into her classes every Friday, offering students 15 minutes of uninterrupted social time–a chance for them to reconnect, talk to each other and even play games. However, to counter the complex and widespread effects on mental health due to the pandemic, schools will need to do more than encourage 15 minutes of conversation.

The pandemic has revealed the lack of mental health resources and education personnel available in schools all around the world and calls into question the need for better student and teacher support measures to be put into place.

In conceptualizing and rebuilding education delivery, schools must be equipped with the tools to meet all of the students’ needs rather than the inflated focus on the traditional academic aspects of learning, an Economic Policy Institute article says. “This will require implementation of diagnostic assessments that inform teachers about where students are socially and emotionally, [and] in traditional academic areas, as well as the adoption of strategies to bolster children’s social and emotional strengths and address their social and emotional needs,” the article continues. “We have the opportunity of making whole-child education the norm as standards, instruction, assessments and wraparound support are structured, which will finally mean that social and emotional learning is front and central in our education policy agenda going forward.”

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From language apps and online tutoring websites to electronic whiteboards and video conferencing tools, usage of educational technology has been growing even prior to the pandemic. According to Markets Insider, global edtech investments reached US$16.34 billion in 2018 and US$18.66 billion in 2019, surpassing the total combined investments made to edtech companies in the 20-year period between 1998 and 2017. This growth has only accelerated during the pandemic, with the online education market expected to reach US$350 billion by 2025, according to a recent report.

While James still prefers face-to-face learning, she recognizes the effectiveness of incorporating online learning technologies into her lessons. For her classes, primarily social studies and science, James started encouraging her students to watch YouTube videos to reinforce certain concepts she had taught and she continues even as the school gradually transitions back to in-person instruction. “I found that the videos explained the concepts to [the students] in a much easier way where they were able to see the methods and experiments,” said James.

The country is growing to be more in tune with technology and the benefits it offers, according to Mohamed. “[We] were forced to step out of [our] comfort zones and think outside the box to ensure we do not fail the current generation by depending on the routine, traditional [teaching] methods,” said Mohamed. “There is still so much more we can accomplish if we embrace the full support of what technology and modern-day thinking can achieve.”