Minister of Education Priya Manickchand on Friday said that plans are in train for more secondary schools to offer Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) subjects.

This announcement was made during a ceremony held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.

Manickchand, while speaking about changes her ministry is working towards for secondary education in the country, said the ministry has drafted plans for at least seven secondary schools, including the JC Chandisingh, West Demerara and

Anna Regina secondary schools, to become centres for sixth form students.

She also noted that students at Wakenaam have a science teacher for the first time. She said that a facility which allows the teacher to live on the island has been built. As a result, she said, the students can remain in the region rather than having to leave or decide not to do the science subjects as in the previous options.

She added that the non-top schools (A list and B list) are not talked about enough. She said that for this reason there is a stigma attached to them. She added that the students at these schools do very well and have high performance rates. As a result, the ministry has started planning and even visiting these schools to check for ways to improve them.

It was also announced that all the secondary schools that were expected to be reopened following the inoculation of students have been reopened. Only the Grades 10, 11 and 12 students are allowed into classrooms. Manickchand said that Grade 9 is being considered but no decision has been finalised. She said that students do not have to be vaccinated to return to school, while reminding that students who wanted to be vaccinated were allowed the time to do so before the ministry was advised by the Ministry of Health about further reopening. Previously the Ministry had said that faceto-face learning for these grades will recommence depending on the number of students who become inoculated.

In addition, there has been an expansion for the number of students’ intake at the five top schools. She said that the decision to take in more students was to allow students who worked for the spot to get it. She added that the ministry also intends to

find a way to help further the education provided for Grade Nine students who attend Primary tops. She said that these students are often left on their own after they are done with Grade Nine because the Primary tops schools only go up to Grade Nine.