Dear Editor,
The school population 32 years ago was much less than now. So you have to build schools to accommodate the growing school population. So many more schools are needed especially in the interior areas. I have travelled through about half this country at my own expense. What I do know is there are lots of children of school age who never attend school. Some work on farms and some in the gold bush.
About one-and-a-half years ago, I was at Baramita in Region One and I saw children in creeks working.
I also saw children at Eyelash backdam in pits fending for themselves. I had a chat with some of them and those I spoke with had never seen a school yard. I asked one of them his age, and he told me he didn’t know. I suggested to him his age might be around 14 or 15, and he said, yes, somewhere around there.
Any government whether good or bad must provide the basics for the country, such as schools, police stations, roads, transportation; they have to please the people, not themselves. They are supposed to serve this nation, create a jobs initiative, and not depend too much on foreign investors, especially those with a poor international reputation. We need companies who are willing to adhere to our national labour laws, so to protect our workers against unfair treatment. We do not want to hear only foreigners can be employed because of language barriers.
Guyana needs to have laws to protect our natural resources; we cannot allow unscrupulous companies to rape our grandchildren’s resources.
The government must try to avoid being weak in negotiations or else they will have to pay the price.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Hope
