Dear Editor,
Development practitioners have long established that there is a positive correlation between education and development. This is why any government that is serious about economic development cannot ignore this important fact. Experience has shown that countries that invest heavily in human resource development experience a much higher level of growth and development compared to those that underspend on what is often referred to as social capital.
Singapore is a good example of this reality. During the early 1960s Singapore had a per capita income which was almost on par with Guyana. Today, Singapore has leap-frogged to high income status and is now regarded as one of the Asian tigers with a per capita income comparable to the United States and other countries of the industrialized north. This development is all the more spectacular when seen against the backdrop of a country that is not as endowed with natural and mineral resources and with huge reserves of oil as many other countries, including ours.
What the country did was to transform its people into development capital by investing heavily in brainpower development which has over the decades catapulted it into an economic powerhouse comparable in per capita terms to any country of the developed north. From a sleepy port and harbour economy in the 1950s, Singapore is now a hub of fast moving cargo and containers through the use of the most advanced technologies. The information and communication technology sector is the main driver of the modernization process.
I had the opportunity of visiting Singapore where I spent a few weeks at the Civil Service College which is rated as the leading Civil Service College in the world. The college specializes in the training of civil servants especially at the senior management levels where they are exposed to such skills as change management and electronic governance and a host of management tools relative to public sector management. Interestingly, the college is also utilized by the private sector to orient and train employees at senior managerial levels on basic management principles and techniques.
There are quite a number of things that I found interesting about Singapore. The first had to do with the cleanliness of the country. The entire city is almost free of garbage and waste due mainly to severe littering and defacement laws. There was the well-known case of a US student who was ordered to be flogged for defacing a public building and not even the intervention of the then President of the United States could have spared him the proverbial rod of correction.
This is somewhat of a diversion from the real point, but it highlights an important point in management and governance namely, that when it comes to infringing the laws of the country there can be no holy cows and everyone regardless of rank or status must be made to suffer the force of the law in the event of proven guilt.
The pivotal role of education in nation building was recognized by the PPP/C administration when it assumed office on October 5, 1992. Education was declared a national priority and the budgetary allocations were reconfigured to give effect to that new emphasis. It did not take long before the decline in education standards which had characterized most of the PNC years were halted and later reversed. The education attainment gap between our Guyanese students and their regional counterparts was systematically narrowed.
The attainment gap in education standards was not the result of any mental or cognitive deficiency on the part of our Guyanese students, but was due primarily to an inadequacy of resources both human and financial to provide an acceptable quality of education delivery. I recall my own experience as a classroom teacher during the early 1980s when something as basic as chalk was in short supply and had to be rationed. We were limited to two sticks of chalk per day which was for all practical purposes a joke, given the fact that in those days it was more a case of ‘chalk and talk’ rather than using electronic and other forms of audio-visual teaching aids available today.
The point in all of this is that there was a direct nexus between a dysfunctional education system and an underperforming economy, as was the case under the previous PNC regime. Put in a different way, there is a positive correlation between a functional and responsive education system and a strong and robust economy as the experience of Singapore and the other so-called Asian tigers so unmistakably demonstrate.
As we observe Education Month in September, it is opportune for policy-makers not to lose sight of this fact so that the education gains that we have made over the years are not eroded through misguided policies and programmes that are politically motivated. We have come a long way in terms of improvements in the quality of education delivery and the education infrastructure as a whole. If there is one thing that we cannot play political football with, it is the education of our children who are the future leaders of our country.
Education is not in crisis as some people are trying to project. In this regard, I am unsure as to the value of any new commission of enquiry into the state of education in Guyana which from all indications is met with lukewarm support from education stakeholders. What is needed is to build on the menu of measures put in place by the previous PPP/C administration to overhaul and upgrade the quality of education delivery. This essentially means that there should be an injection of resources into the system to adequately cater to the critical needs of the sector, such as teacher training and development with particular emphasis on rural and hinterland schools, teacher remuneration, adequate supply of teaching and learning resources, improved and updated measurement and evaluation techniques and a learning environment conducive to effective learning. The cash incentive of ten thousand dollars per annum to parents of children who attend school should be restored and new and innovative measures should be sought to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The government cannot abdicate its responsibility to provide not simply education but more importantly quality education to the children of Guyana. This cannot be left to private providers who may be influenced by motives other than that which is in the best interest of children and their parents. Education must remain secular in keeping with our constitution.
Education may be expensive but so is ignorance. As a former PPP member of parliament during the previous PNC regime remarked during a budget debate, “If education is too expensive, try ignorance.” Guyana has paid dearly during the previous PNC administration when the sector was neglected. One hopes that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated and that adequate resources will be put into the sector in order to build on the foundation laid by the previous PPP/C administration.
Yours faithfully,
Hydar Ally
