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Kudos to the Reverend
DEAR EDITOR,
In Kaieteur News Saturday 12 July, Rev. Gideon Cecil wrote indignantly about the waste of tax payers money paid out to Guyana Prize winners for works containing profanity, sex and obscenity. I can’t fault him for his views.
Next he complained that many are advocating for these said books to be on the CXC Syllabus. I can’t fault him for this either.
For a very long time Ian McDonald’s The Humming-Bird Tree was kept off the CXC list because the last section of the work contains a bold sexual reference and also the image of an adolescent boy drinking rum.
As a parent of adolescent children, I am disturbed to note that somehow this book has managed to work its way onto the list.
How would a literature teacher explain that to a class of adolescents and budding adults?
Is it that times have changed or that people with sufficient influence always get their way?
So Reverend, it seems your work is cut out. You must now advocate that schools in Guyana do not offer this book for the exam. You can write to the Minister of Education and urge other parents to do the same.
You can also call on CXC to explain why they have included this book for the next five years.
Why expose youngsters to the perversities of the adult world (rum and sex) before they are ready for it?
Alex Cooper
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