Education policies that focus on trees but neglect the forest of nation-building destroy Guyana

Jan 29, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I write to express my concerns about the Ministry of Education’s (MOE’s) Schools Competency Certificate Programme (SCCP), currently being offered in 35 secondary schools.
It is reported (Kaieteur News, 09-01-11), that at a recent forum, Minister Shaik Baksh indicated that the MOE has plans to introduce this programme in 35 more secondary schools by 2013.
The Minister, it is reported, said that the SCCP is aimed at curbing dropout levels, and at providing students who are not desirous of pursuing the academic subjects with an alternative pathway that will make them more eligible for first level entry jobs.
The Minister, however, omitted to give examples of first level entry jobs and the occupations (unskilled or semi-skilled), in which the SCCP will be acceptable.
I find the Minister’s comment: “…students who are not desirous of pursuing academic subjects…” to be extremely troubling, particularly since education is, by law, compulsory.
One of man’s most natural and fundamental drives, is the search for knowledge, for understanding, and for meaning. This quest begins at birth. It grows out of the natural inquisitiveness of the human mind and unless it is killed through unfortunate learning experiences, it will flourish throughout life as the individual becomes more and more “educated”
This process of inquiry is quite random and remains relatively so throughout the pre-primary phase of learning. Later, through the influence of formal primary “education”, the process becomes more systematized as the skills necessary for orderly acquisition of knowledge are mastered. During the secondary phase of education, the process becomes even more ordered as learners acquire specialized strategies of inquiry and employ these in their approach to different fields of study.
Our school system uses the criterion of age to differentiate between the primary and secondary phases. Although the age criterion makes a clear administrative division, it is less satisfactory as an educational one. Psychologically, 11 is no longer the watershed it was once thought to be. The ages of maturity differ considerably among individuals. Also any individual may be mature in some ways, but very much still a child in other ways (to wit, the two UG freshmen who set off an explosive on campus). Physiological growth and psychological development do not proceed at the same pace, and community pressures may push boys and girls into seemingly earlier social than personal maturity.
Nevertheless, it should now be common knowledge in education circles, that every individual possesses multiple intelligences (including the academic), but, which differ in the extent of their development in different individuals.
If the teaching styles used by teachers in schools do not match the learning styles of individual students, then the students feel alienated, their self-esteem is battered, they eventually lose interest in the academic pursuit, and are virtually “pushed out” from school. I will deal more with this issue at another time..
I am, however, primarily concerned about the continued subversion (wittingly or unwittingly) of what ought to be the purpose of secondary education in an emerging democracy whose national goal (and motto) is: “One People, One Nation, One Destiny”.
Neither the mere acquisition of facts, nor the development of special skills can give the broad basis of understanding that is essential to the attainment of our national goal. The Guyanese education process must include at each level some continuing contact with those fields in which value judgements are of prime importance.
Guyanese students must be concerned, in part at least, with the words “right” and “wrong” in both the ethical and mathematical sense.
Unless Guyanese students recognise the importance of those values, ideas, and aspirations that have been the driving force in the lives of great people, they run the risk of partial “blindness” for the rest of their lives.
One of the chief characteristics of the Guyanese society as it strives towards modernity is its increasing complexity. Consequently, the business of providing for its needs will breed greater occupational diversity.
Specialism will become the chief vehicle of social mobility, and, specialities will make increasing demands on the time and interest of students. The “centrifugal” forces created by these diverse needs of society, and propelled by specialism, will tend to “push” or “pull” in different directions and there will be no “unity” in our “diversity”.
These tendencies will forever pose a grave risk to the attainment of our national goal of “One People, One Nation, One Destiny”. A general education is absolutely essential to offset these centrifugal forces.
A general education (including environmental and financial literacy), that ultimately aims at the development of learning literacy (the ability to learn throughout one’s life), is essential for every Guyanese citizen, if they are expected to discharge intelligently, their civic duties in society.
In this age of specialism and rapid technological change, every single member of our society, for several basic reasons, has to take on “trust” other members of society. They must, therefore, possess a kind of “savvy” or “know how” by which they can distinguish, discern, and discriminate.
They must possess that broad critical sense by which to recognise competence and worth in any field.
Further, modern technology demands workers with considerable amount of basic or general education as a foundation, on which may be built specialized training in a specific technical field. It is only with this kind of background that workers can obtain the necessary flexibility to enable them to shift to new types of work that will emerge in the years ahead.
Permanent education (the ability to learn throughout one’s life), is one of the most democratic demands of the present scientific and technological age. And, what is more, permanent education for Guyanese workers and their entire communities is a prior condition of future scientific, technological, economic and social progress in Guyana.
There is widespread agreement that one of the distinctive features of secondary education is that it is essentially general education. In other words, the secondary phase of education is the one period in the entire formal education process in which learners are to be exposed to all the major significant areas of human knowledge. Is the alternative pathway of the SCCP denying young Guyanese of their “inalienable right” to be exposed to all the major significant areas of human knowledge?
Further, and contrary to what the Hon. Minister might believe, most young Guyanese see education as a means to be socially mobile. Many are hoping to improve their status, to achieve some measure of power over their lives, to have a voice in the affairs of men and to have a “good life”. The fact that every student is a potential parent, and even if not, as an individual must be concerned with basic drives such as food, sex, the problems of health (both private and public), of the underprivileged, morals, and questions of value; consider the problems of conservation (particularly energy), issues of “Low Carbon Development”, ecological imbalances, solid waste disposal (Le Repentir), widespread environmental degradation and pollution (as in the mining areas), problems of the unemployable, the matter of national productivity, international competition, add to these the problems of our borders and the widespread crime, corruption and breakdown of law and order within our very own borders
What are the implications of the above and other similar issues, Hon. Minister, for secondary education in Guyana and for the “forest” of nation-building? Will the SCCP graduates be prepared for “life” in Guyana, rather than just for a first level entry job?
Guyanese who have benefited from the secondary phase of a quality education system should, among other things:
1) Have some understanding of most of the major areas of organised knowledge together with some grasp of the modes of inquiry through which each category of knowledge is discovered and acquired;
2) Be able to learn and to communicate ideas through symbols of many kinds, especially the symbols of language;
3) Continue to learn by mastering new methods of inquiry by re-examining assumptions, reformulating hypotheses, and seeking to gain greater control over their behaviour, so that they may put their developing powers increasingly in the service of their aspirations.
Hon. Minister, given the context and implications of our national goal (and national motto): “One People. One Nation, One Destiny”, shouldn’t we ensure that all Guyanese youth are provided with equal educational opportunity – with the same quantity and quality of education?
The best education for the best is the best education for all.
Equality of educational opportunity is not, in fact, provided if it means no more than taking all children into schools for the same number of hours, days, and years.
If once there, they are divided into sheep and goats, into those destined to become labourers and those destined for professional careers and for a quality of life to which all should have access, then the democratic purpose of education has been undermined by an inadequate system of public schooling.
As I have said before, quality education is not a luxury that can be afforded only after development has occurred; it is an integral part, an inescapable and essential part of the developmental process itself. Further, quality education makes possible the economic democracy that enables social mobility.
For it is quality education that ensures that social classes are not frozen, and that an “elite” of whatever kind does not perpetuate itself.
Finally, Hon. Minister, if our standard of living is to be improved, if the growth of a permanent underclass is to be arrested and averted, and if our emerging democracy is to develop and function effectively in this twenty-first century, then all of our schools must be staffed by competent professionals, the caretakers of democracy, who will ensure that the vast majority of their students experience success with achievement levels usually thought possible only for the privileged few.
If the teachers in our schools become leaders in the discovery, nurture and development of the innate potentials of their students, then the creation of wealth will become manifest in Guyana.
Clarence O. Perry

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