In an increasingly competitive world, the demand for learning is growing exponentially. In the globalized marketplace, where developing countries are hard- pressed to compete with richer, more technologically advanced nations, those that have been able to gain a competitive foothold are those that have invested in their most valuable resource, their human capital. In the Caribbean, Barbados is the prime example of this thinking.
In Guyana however, we have recently had the national embarrassment of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, our country’s premier educational institution, bemoaning the paucity of resources at his disposal to maintain even minimum standards at UG. It would seem that we are failing to give our youth the education and the promise of the better future to which they are entitled.
Ours is a national setting notable for less than stellar economic and social indicators. Over the past thirty years Guyana’s Human Development Index ranking has been relatively static. Despite official assurances of a high literacy rate, CXC results and anecdotal evidence would suggest an alarmingly high level of functional illiteracy, as well as a high level of functional innumeracy.
Meanwhile, the debilitating brain drain continues, as Guyana haemorrhages people and skills, especially those we can perhaps least afford to lose – our teachers. Given the government’s inability to turn the situation around, the time has come for more innovative thinking.
The private sector is clearly the main sector possessing many of the leadership and entrepreneurial skills indispensable for growth. But while the private sector cannot and should not displace the role of the government in providing an adequate level of education for the younger citizens of Guyana, there must be space for engagement with the private sector to address the problem of our human infrastructure.
We are not here talking about more private schools, for we are seeking a more equitable solution. Rather, if the private sector is truly to be the “engine of growth” – and so far this has been more of a political clich
