The North Georgetown Secondary School launched its E-Library today, an initiative aimed at increasing the access by students to educational materials.
According to Rear Admiral Gary Best, the project was birthed in March of this year when a group of old students based in Guyana and overseas, met and discussed how they could give back to their alma mater, particularly at a time when the school is celebrating its 50th Anniversary.
During the opening of the E-Library, he noted that the project is being done in three phases. He said that in phase one, the use of the E-Library will be facilitated on-site at the school whereby 25 students at a time will be able to access the database or repository.
Further, he said that phase two will allow students to access the database from any section of the school and finally, phase three will allow students to access the database remotely.
The database will contain past papers, books, textbooks and other educational material that will be relevant to students at the school from Grade 7 (form one) to Grade 11 (form five).
Delivering the feature address at the launching ceremony was Minister of Education, Dr. Nicolette Henry who said that E-Libraries are very relevant to education delivery in today’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) age as they open windows to the world and inspire users to explore, achieve and contribute to improving the quality of life.
“So, the introduction of an E-Library at this school is nothing short of remarkable and should be highly commended. Congratulations and well done to all that were instrumental in this process,” Minister Henry remarked.
She noted that since digital libraries are not confined to a particular space or building and are virtually distributed, is an advantage.
Minister Henry said that it is recognized that through the deployment of ICT within the educational environment, complemented by ready content, the existing delivery, culture, and practice of knowledge transfer from traditional memory-based learning to stimulated thinking can be transformed.
Moreover, the Education Minister noted that President David Granger
has posited that ICT will spawn knowledge-based industries while diversifying the economy away from primary production, moving to manufacture up the value chain and building greater economic resilience.
Further, Minister Henry explained that the vision of the Ministry of Education is to eliminate illiteracy, modernizing education and strengthening tolerance. She said that the E-Library, which is now being piloted at the North Georgetown Secondary School, is well aligned to the Ministry’s vision and that of the government. According to Minister Henry, the project will be extended to other schools across the country.
“Guyana is indeed on the right path and in the right hands. So, the North Georgetown Secondary School is the launching ground for the first ICT school library in this country. Congratulations again to the entire team that birthed this project, the members of the 50th Anniversary Committee, members of the staff and all those instrumental for such a phenomenal step,” Minister Henry said.
