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The school system and its imperfections

Dec 13, 2012 Editorial

 

 

Four years ago when the nation took notice of the teacher shortage the Education Ministry announced that it would train more thus trying to create a reservoir of potentially good teachers. Indeed, the nation and the Ministry recognized that the experience that the older teachers would have, could not easily be replaced. The government decided that it would rehire some retired teachers.
There have been a few cases of retired teachers being rehired, albeit on a month to month arrangement. There were others who were hired on a contract basis. What was clear was that these efforts were only concentrated in the institutions of higher learning. The primary schools were left to struggle.
Experts would always say that there is great need to concentrate the education efforts at the bottom of the scale so that those now entering the school system would be given a foundation that would stand them in good stead through their school career.
What we have is a concentration at the highest level and this may be the reason why nearly two-thirds of those leave school functionally incapable of making a positive contribution to the society. Guyana has already been feeling the result of this. There are more young men who are in the criminal enterprise and these days women are also joining this enterprise.
However, attention should be paid to some secondary schools where a teacher shortage is being reported. There are about 100 secondary schools and about 1,000 primary schools spread across Guyana. About 1,000 teachers graduate from the Cyril Potter College of Education each year. Over the past four years one would have expected the schools to have a complement of qualified teachers.
Indeed, the Education Ministry boasted just a few months ago that there were an adequate number of trained teachers in the schools and that it would not be long before every teacher would be a qualified teacher. This leaves us to wonder at the state of affairs at President’s College.
This was an institution that came into being as the primary secondary education facility. It was dubbed the School of Excellence and attracted the cream of the secondary schools entrance examination. Indeed, there were those parents who declined and opted for Queen’s College which had made its name over the more than one hundred years it had been in existence.
It was a live-in facility with everything, from swimming pool, to horse riding facilities to farms that accommodate both crop and livestock and of course, everything that an educational facility could require including matrons to supervise the dormitories.
This school was downgraded somewhat after 1992 to the point where it now experiences a shortage of teachers. Why was this allowed to happen when the nation needs people with brains is anybody’s guess. Unlike the other secondary schools which had a curriculum that prepared the student for life in the metropolis, President’s College prepared the students for life in this country.
It is only now that we find that graduates from this institution are doing what every other student is doing, heading for a foreign country where the grass appears to be greener.
However, there is a teacher shortage and we now hear that the school would be staffed by the crop of teachers coming out of the Cyril Potter College of Education. Certainly, these would be teachers at the lower level of the school since they would not be experienced enough to take the higher classes to the levels desired by a school of such nature.
But this situation is not unique to President’s College. All the major schools have a problem with specialist teachers. There was talk about importing teachers. This was done before and is done by every country that recognises the need for certain teachers. This is why Guyana lost the cream of its crop.
We know that there is one Mathematics teacher to take Sixth Form children from at least five secondary schools to the Advanced Levels. And this has been the case for a few years. This situation should have been corrected a long time ago but it is not. We can only conclude that we are either dabbling in education or that we simply do not care.

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