Guyana Scholarships

May 19, 2013 Editorial

Guyanese Secondary School students are in the midst of writing their CSEC and CAPE exams and we wish all of them well in this most stressful endeavour. Our system of education is an “all or nothing” affair and the performance at these exams will, to a very great degree, determine the career trajectories of the students.
We have always taken an extraordinary interest, and pride, in the achievements of the top performers, which, because they are regionally conducted, offered us the opportunity to compete with our much more affluent neighbours.
That we have consistently produced “winners” in the CSEC category has made us perhaps under emphasise that for the more competitive universities, including the University of the West Indies, CAPE is the exam that determines entry into their programmes. In the last decade T&T has consistently excelled in this category and their winners, offered scholarships by their government, routinely go on to complete their studies in some of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Our focus on CSEC, then, is actually an indicator of the still underdeveloped nature of our education system, since UG still accepts this certificate as its entrance requirement. This state of affairs is one of the reasons why graduates of UG are so highly criticised for their unpreparedness in the subjects in which they are supposed to be qualified. Unless the students enter the institution with prior exposure to the greater demands of a university’s curriculum and absence of “spoon feeding”, which CAPE bridges, they will continue to founder.
Recently, the President and his Minister of Education reiterated the government’s commitment to fulfilling and continuing last year’s announcement that the two top performers at both CSEC and CAPE will receive fully funded scholarships to either local or foreign universities to continue with their studies. We have been consistently calling for a return of the “Guyana Scholarships” based on merit over the last decade and we applaud the administration for their move.
However, it does appear that the announcement on the scholarships was somewhat ad hoc and not part of any comprehensive plan for raising our educational standards to address our developmental needs.
First of all, we are not so sure that the scholarships for CSEC performance add much incentive to the ones already awarded by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC). For our top performers we are emphasising children to simply attempt ever increasing number of subjects. We have had students being successful with sixteen subjects with Grade Ones, and this year, the Minister revealed that one (or more?) students are writing twenty subjects. To what end, we ask? To simply win an award?
We believe that, as was customary during our glory days up to the sixties, to boost educational achievements, scholarships ought to be awarded to the best CAPE students, which is equivalent to the “A” Levels back then. Success at the CSEC is not necessarily a predictor of success at the CAPE, but the latter is quite highly correlated with success in university.
Some scholarships awarded to CSEC students by CXC could be taken up by the winners in their chosen field of study such as engineering or medicine at UWI because the winners could not maintain their performance at the more demanding CAPE.
We also believe that for a developing country that is short of skills that are critically needed in several areas, the scholarships ought to be earmarked for these studies. While it sounds good to be encouraging ‘scholars’, the rueful conclusion of the developed world at this time is that the very expensive university education should have more relevance to the development of the country.
Phds in English Literature, for instance, are now being reconsidered.
Thirdly, we have also advocated and do so once more, that the early practice of Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew to solicit scholarships from prestigious foreign universities for our “A” Level/CAPE performers be emulated.
Our Ministry of Education should have a desk that can take care of liaising with the dozens of foreign universities that offer such scholarships.

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Guyana Scholarships

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