Dear Editor,
The political discourse between the presidential candidates at the University of Guyana on Thursday November 10, was great theatre; there were wild accusations, great promises, a lively young boisterous crowd and one very interesting boast. PPP/C presidential candidate Mr Donald Ramotar, boasted that the PPP/C government had built more than one thousand schools in Guyana, during its tenure in office. On the surface without doing any fact-checking as to the veracity of his remarks, this seems quite a commendable achievement. However, having seen many of the schools in Guyana, Mr Ramotar’s remarks reminded me of something my grandmother used to say when she found me shirking my duties: “The soldier sleeps while the city burns.”
While it may be true that the current government has built one thousand school buildings, the records show that these schools are not built to modern standards, are not adequately staffed, are ill equipped and fail to give our students the competitive edge to compete in a global economy.
Most of our schools today are staffed and equipped to produce clerks, servants, sweepers and drivers, instead of scientists, technologists engineers and mathematicians. Take a look at any of the schools along the coast; start with the architecture, then look at the physical classroom layout. What you find is that in fifty years nothing has changed. Our children and grandchildren are going to school in the same tired, hot, stuffy, and noisy primitive buildings that we did in the sixties and seventies. In fifty years we have replaced the rotary phone with Blackberries and smart phones, black and white televisions with flat-screen coloured devices, the record player with IPods, but education in Guyana in 2011 is going backwards. In 1966 there were five top high schools in Guyana; today forty-five years later they are still only five top high schools in Guyana, and we must ask why.
Today with the world’s population over the 700 billion mark there is a great need for food, natural resources and water, commodities that Guyana has and can produce in abundance. Yet we fail to adequately prepare our students to take advantage of these opportunities, through bad, visionless and bankrupt education policies. Where are the science labs, where are the computer labs, the media centres, the athletic departments? All of these co-curricular and extra-curricular activities are necessary in a modern school. Today with an ever shrinking world, where we are just a keystroke away from each other, education must be tailored to meet not only national needs but the global realities. You can build a million buildings, but if they lack trained personnel and the necessary infrastructure for modern learning then you defeat the purpose and would have wasted the effort.
I commend David Granger and the APNU for articulating that they intend to make Guyana an education nation once again. I applaud their plans for regional agricultural institutes and a non- military all volunteer national service, for retraining our youth and equipping them with skills to enter the world of work. I believe, like they do, that education is a key element to building a strong economy, reducing unemployment and arresting criminal behaviour.
It is a sad irony that the University of Guyana, an institution established by Cheddi Jagan, has been neglected and politicized by the PPP/C government. Our university has not grown in stature or accreditation in forty-five years and that is a direct indictment on our current education policy. We have been unable to attract and/or keep reputable professors and lecturers, and this also is a black mark on the administration.
What passes for education in Guyana today is unsustainable, for as the qualified university graduates flee our land to seek jobs and more secure environs, we are left with a growing underclass and weak and intellectually stunted leaders; a prescription for disaster.
The time is long overdue for change in Guyana and the PPP/C by their 19-year record has proven that they cannot provide the change we seek. The new government that will take office in December must not be afraid to be bold and innovative in their approach to education in Guyana. The APNU’s plan to raise the salaries, improve teachers’ benefits and allow them to retire at 65, is a good first step. However, we must be prepared to do more.
We must end the current school system that is based on the agrarian calendar. The school year must be longer, cutting back on the long ‘August’ holidays. If we are to compete then we must not be afraid to make radical changes in the way we do business. This is the only way forward; this is the only way that we can reverse the current trend. A lot will be at stake in this year’s elections, I wish the APNU well, because I feel that they have the people and the political will to make the changes that will be necessary.
Yours faithfully,
Mark Archer
