New Broom for Schools

Jan 11, 2012 Editorial

The new school term is now well on its way and the new Minister of Education has unfurled a flurry of initiatives. New brooms do tend to sweep clean. Under the regime of her predecessor, there was also a steady stream of innovation and change. But the bottom line, as defined by most stakeholders – results at the CSEC exams – is that commensurate results were not produced.
It is probably for this reason that there was a change at the helm. However the new Minister must not confuse motion with change, in this most important of activity by this or any government. Right on top of her agenda, the Minister and her team must define the goals of the Ministry of Education. Take the CSEC exams; are they a good indicator of the success or failure of the education system?
Most parents, and probably our educators, take an economistic view of what is expected: supplying bodies and brains for the forces of production. While there are intermittent noises made about the need for moral or civic training in our schools, these are typically given very short shrift. The Minister must revisit this area. It may be trite, but it is no less true that man does not live by bread alone.
For our country to progress smoothly in the years ahead, we cannot ignore the fact that it is the amoral behaviour of those that are in control of the economic system in the developed countries that have brought them down to their knees. Of what benefit will it be to our country if technically proficient graduates of our educational institutions simply deliver 90% of the profits of the economy to the top 1% of the population? The moral training must incorporate a civic component so that we may understand how best to serve our country.
As we have pointed out in several previous editorials, the government has performed credibly in rehabilitating the physical infrastructure of the education sector. However, the quality of the work on the buildings leaves much to be desired. Within a few years of being constructed many of these buildings are falling apart. This phenomenon, of course, is not confined to buildings in the educational sector but is the norm in all work contracted out by the government. The Minister must establish a unit within her Ministry to ensure that they are receiving value for the money expended on their behalf.
Then there is the vexed matter of the content of the curriculum in the areas that are supposed to produce qualified individuals for our economic sector. Take, for instance, agriculture. With all the talk and debate about ‘diversification of the economy’, agriculture remains the backbone of our economy. Agriculture is on our curriculum and we have secured an amazing number of CSEC passes in the subject.
What has to be asked, however, is how many of these graduates move into a job or profession in agriculture after they leave school? Not many. And this is a tragedy. Our agricultural efficiencies will only improve when our farmers integrate into their farming repertoire the knowledge base that encompasses the latest innovations in the field. Take for instance, the issue of Genetically Modified (GM) crops: how many of our farmers can evaluate the opportunities and threats of this innovation to our farming practices?
There is much talk about ‘technical education’ and three new Technical Institutes are to be commissioned this year. But how different will these be from the three Institutes that are already in operation? The graduates of the older institutions have not exactly taken Guyana by storm. Will there be new subjects offered? What about the vaunted OLPF? Will the distributed computers be facilitating the technical training since many of the recipients will be candidates for technical training?
Then there is the matter of foreign languages. On numerous occasions we have questioned the relevance of French on our curriculum – especially in the senior high schools. What about Portuguese, we have asked? Brazil is an emerging superpower. And so is India. What about Hindi?

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