Dear Editor,
Recently His Excellency President David Granger announced the commitment of his government to the restoration of free education from nursery to university. The advent of this announcement, in all likelihood, has driven the pundits to dust off their essays on the advantages and disadvantages of free education and whether in fact free education is really free.
Thousands of Guyanese, who would not otherwise have been able to, benefited in the past from free education from nursery to university; albeit, many will argue that it was not quality education. No doubt, should this promise come to fruition it will hopefully benefit many and Guyana will be the better for it.
We love to cite Singapore as an example where education contributed immensely to economic development. One certain benefit of free education is that thousands more of young Guyanese will be relieved of the onerous task of repaying student loans; finance that can otherwise be used as seed money to acquire a home. It also behooves the powers that be to ensure the lessons learnt from the first offerings of free education are factored into the second and also to ensure that free education is synchronized with quality education.
The following are a few suggestions that should engender serious consideration to ensure that the nation’s second bite of this apple achieves the desired outcomes:
1. Properly equipped Science laboratories.
2. Restore adult education to give persons a second or third chance to obtain a satisfactory number of CSEC subjects for employment or higher education.
3. Increase the sum that is given to schools for grants.
4. Provide better resourced classrooms to address Special Educational Needs.
5. Train and employ more Schools Welfare Officers, Guidance Counsellors and Laboratory Assistants to free up teachers so that they can teach.
6. Observe the Non-academic Standards – address the pupil-teacher ratio (class size), furniture and staff room facilities, timely repairs and maintenance of buildings and equipment.
7. Expand the hot meal programme for deserving students.
8. Devise an attractive package to motivate Trained Graduate teachers to take up positions in hinterland locations.
9. (Re)establish Regional Resource Centres and Strengthen NCERD with a view to offer programmes to teachers to upgrade their teaching methods and skills in order for them to remain relevant.
10. Set goals for the University of Guyana with a view to, at least, elevate its ranking in the Caribbean and the Americas.
Go Guyana!
Yours faithfully,
Bernel L.H. Wickham
