We waste our children

Aug 14, 2010 Editorial

Some little acts go a long way. Just this week internationally renowned artiste, Eddy Grant, honoured some children from his native Plaisance for their performance at the recent Grade Six Examinations. These children have all been elevated to good secondary schools to continue their education and hopefully, to contribute later to the development of their community.
Eddy Grant is not the first nor is he the only one to recognize top performers. Credit Unions and other organizations have been known to award bursaries to top performers, many of whom might not have had the financial wherewithal to present themselves properly in their new school.
Of course there was the girl from the Soesdyke-Linden Highway whose mother, by merely telling her story, got substantial help from the wider Guyanese community, so much so that today, not only is she certain that her daughter is going to be among the best in her new school, Queen’s College, but that she would be better able to cope with her studies. She has been provided with electronic tools that are so needed today.
However, more could be done to help the children in the many communities, each of which have wealthy people who should have no difficulty in giving back to the people who helped make them wealthy. The combined efforts of these people could really make a difference on the educational landscape. And the landscape is desperately in need of reformation.
Communities are still proud of their top performers but more often than not the pride does not extend to tangible proportions. Perhaps it could be the economic situation of many people or it could be that we as a people have graduated to the point where we proudly proclaim that we mind our own business.
Yet it must be realized that minding our own business could be detrimental. We have seen the problems that school dropouts could cause. Many have become ready pawns for the street smart, and others have gone different ways, largely because they were so frustrated at not being able to secure jobs for which they are ill-qualified as a result of not securing the basic education.
We recently noted that teachers who used the August holidays with the same alacrity as their students and pupils gave up that vacation to return to the classrooms to teach those who needed remedial classes if they were to be in a position to cope during the new school year. This was a most rewarding sight and a laudable task.
For one, it allowed those parents who lack the supervisory skills to have their children placed in the care of a teacher, if only for a few hours. It also allowed those children who recognized their weaknesses to correct any deficiency in certain subject areas.
But this is not enough. There needs to be the total support of so many more. There is a lack of skills in the sporting arena for example. In the past, children used the vacation to play and to develop certain skills. Those who could, swam, and others learnt. There were the physically demanding games such as football and cricket. Some later went on to become national and regional players.
Some of the cricketing establishment in the city hosted what they called academies. The numbers that attended were heartening but these represented a mere fraction of those who could have been so gainfully occupied.
There is a need for Guyana to return to the basics; people must take the younger ones in hand. Things have already reached crisis proportions, with young men opting for those things that can only spell trouble for them sooner rather than later.
In other countries, parents use every opportunity to take children to locations where these children could learn things that would supplement their education. It is not by accident that these children, at the end of the visit, hit the computers to learn even more.
We have the capability in Guyana, but we simply take our children for granted. We are the worse off for this attitude.

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