Education ministry strengthening “quality and accountability”

Last Updated on Monday, 15 December 2025, 20:45 by Writer

– National Education Leadership Academy launched

The Ministry of Education on Monday launched its National Education Leadership Academy (NELA), touting it as a means of strengthening school leadership at the district and school levels to ultimately improve children’s learning outcomes.

Chief Education Officer, Saddam Hussain said several initiatives would be launched in January and February, 2026 to achieve quality and accountability.

They include the restart of appraisal of teachers after an absence of more than five years, end-of-term performance report cards for each school and each of the eleven Departments of Education, and the ranking of primary and secondary schools.

“When there is a clamour for a particular school, then it’s based on the ranking and not necessarily what we think the good schools are,” he told the launching of the academy at the Pegasus Corporate Suites.

The academy, whose first cohort of 100 persons—10 headteachers, 15 deputy headteachers , 16 heads of department, 16 senior masters and mistresses, 25 education officers, five aspiring education officers, six Regional Education Officers, and seven central Ministry of Education staff—is an initiative by the Global Partnership of Education and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and will be led by the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO).

The education ministry would also be “shortly” launching the Continuous Professional Development Policy for teachers, and its national teacher awards.

“So you have a system where teachers are held accountable but you also have a system where those teachers, who have excelled, those principals who have excelled, those deputy principals who have excelled are rewarded for their efforts,” he added.

Government expects NELA to improve accountability and the quality of schools through research and solutions.

NELA’s tasks are to find ways of training educators to involve parents, making schools appealing to parents as well and conducting extensive research to determine the issues affecting leadership and providing training at different times of the year.

“One of the things I hope this institution can provide is independence of thought so that the leaders within the school system can think critically, carefully and will not be condemned for their train of thought and that train of thought will move the school forward,” he said.

He also gave an example of school leaders refusing to even turn on and off water systems that have been installed at several schools with support from the IDB.

Acknowledging that Guyana has “fantastic” teachers, he said previously the Ministry of Education’s system of focussing on records rather than on actual performance has made education leaders ‘paper tigers’ but that was about to change. “What you have happening is that leadership is sometimes missing from the school itself,” he said.

Education ministry officials also hope that NELA would help teachers to address bullying, integrate migrants into the school system, improve performance and resolve conflicts.

“We are tired going to schools and hearing that teachers are not talking to each other, teachers are not talking to parents, teachers are not talking to the community and so we hope that the training that is provided here will remove those kinds of issues,” the Chief Education Officer said.

Education minister Sonia Parag said while access to education has become easier and inclusivity has been prioritised with the construction of more than 100 schools since 2020, and increased use of technology and curricula, mainly leaders, who “bring transformation to life”.

She said NELA promises to produce empathetic, ethical, data-driven and committed to equity.

She added that academy is geared to strengthen the middle tier of education with the education ministry’s vision with the lived experiences of students and teachers. “When this tier is strong, systems improve, teaching improves, learning improves and most importantly opportunity expands,” she said.

Ms Parag said over the next 18 months, the 100 participants would engage in blended learning that combines theory with practice in leadership, mentoring. collaboration, accountability and continuous improvement.