Two Wednesdays ago, ahead of the UN Transforming Education Summit, which was held on September 16, 17 and 19, UNICEF revealed that it was estimated that only one in three ten-year olds in developing countries globally are able to read and understand a simple story. It drove home the point with an art installation at the visitors’ entrance of the UN Headquarters in New York, titled the “Learning Crisis Classroom”, complete with chalkboard and desks. A third of the desks were solid wood, adorned with blue UNICEF backpacks. The remaining two-thirds were made of a clear material symbolising the invisibility of the 64 percent of children unable to read and comprehend simple text.
Guyana’s Ministry of Education was represented at this summit and President Irfaan Ali was there as well. One cannot help but wonder whether the installation had the desired impact on our attendees and whether anything will change as a result.
The summit was held in view of the fact that there is a global crisis in education. According to the UN, there is a lack of equity, inclusion, quality and relevance in education, which is having a devastating impact on the futures of children and youth worldwide. While the crisis has been exacerbated by school closures owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, global education had been in dire straits long before 2020. This is why the fourth of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in 2015 with a target date of 2030, aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Furthermore, the second of the eight Millennium Development Goals, which had been adopted in 2000 with a target date of 2015, had aimed to ensure that children everywhere, boys and girls alike, would be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Great strides were made in this direction, but the goal was not fully achieved.
The fact that millions of ten-year olds cannot read and comprehend points to a dysfunction in foundational learning. If this is not addressed before or at this critical age, then there will eventually be millions more adults deemed illiterate, which does not bode well for their individual countries’ growth and development, nor that of the world as a whole.
In his speech on the final day of the summit, UN Secretary General António Guterres, who referred to himself as “a lifelong student”, decried that instead of being “the great enabler” it should be, education was fast becoming “a great divider”. In truth, there is nothing remotely egalitarian about universal education and with each passing year the objectionable elitism spreads. As one of the world’s largest single industries, education is commercially lucrative and continually growing. So much so that in every stage of this sector, quality is saleable and goes to the highest bidders.
This is true even in countries like ours. After education in Guyana went the route of nationalisation in the 1970s, along with everything else, it was made free from nursery to university and all of the schools were government run. Today, there are countless privately-run educational institutions in the country – the majority if not all of which are situated in the city or on the coast – targeting all ages and where parents could afford it, their children never set foot in public schools.
Although at present education remains free in this country from nursery to high school, it is unequal. A cursory glance at the National Grade Six Assessment examination results this year bears this out. Of the 16,200-odd pupils who wrote the exam, some 181 formed the top one percent. One hundred and sixteen of the children making up this list attend schools in Georgetown and Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica). While these are the most populous districts in the country, with the most schools, it is worth bearing in mind that completely excluded from that list were any children from regions One, Seven and Eight, all hinterland areas. There was a single pupil from Region Nine, who was one of 18 tied for the 135th place; 508 marks out of a possible 523.
This is not an anomaly, nor did the pandemic have any bearing on those results. Pick a year at random and the same is true. In 2018, for example, of the 174 pupils making up the top one percent, 123 were from Georgetown and Region Four. Nary a child from regions One, Seven, Eight or Nine made it to that hit parade. Education inequality has to be the obvious conclusion drawn here. Children who live in the city and on the coast are not more naturally intelligent than their rural and hinterland counterparts; they simply have access to a better quality education.
According to a survey done here in 2000 among children aged nine to 11 years old, 36 percent of them were unable to read and pronounce two and three-letter words. These are the ages at which children are about to or become eligible to write the National Grade Six Assessment; the implications, therefore, do not need to be spelt out.
There is a great divide in Guyana’s education system and without taking anything away from the pupils who should naturally celebrate their successes, perhaps the ministry might want to consider how it is going to bridge that gap. President Ali, the One-Guyana man, said in a speech at the aforementioned summit, that the country is committed to an “inclusive education system that leaves no one behind” where every child in every region receives the same education. Nice words, but no indication as to how this will be achieved.
