Our students need leaders in education who will work to ensure their success

Jun 17, 2014 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
I wish to congratulate all the students who were successful at the recent National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA). Special accolades go out to all of our top performers across the country. However, as I congratulate these children I cannot help but to question the logic, stance, and the audacity of the Ministry of Education’s recent pronouncements on the results.
For the hierarchy of the public education system to tell the nation that the Ministry is not concerned about the fact that students at the private schools have been outperforming their counterparts in the public schools at this examination is unacceptable and out of place. For the Ministry to be so casual, unconcerned and dismissive of this fact demonstrates the administration’s inability to understand their role as the leaders in the public education system.
Let me state clearly that I have no difficulty with the fact that students in privately managed schools are excelling at this examination, however, I am outraged when those who operate in the upper echelon of education make statements to suggest that the reality that the private schools are outperforming public schools ought to be a fact that we should expect and accept.
What these people have done is to effectively relegate our students and teachers in the public school system as being mediocre to their counterparts in the private schools. To say that one should expect the private schools to perform better than public schools, exposes the psyche of this regime and its position on public education.
How can we as a nation sit and silently accept these comments. How can we, as responsible citizens, sit quietly and watch as this government relegates more that ninety percent of our children as second fiddles to their counterparts in private schools. The comments are insensitive, nonsensical, divisive and destructive.
The Kaieteur News quoted the Chief Education Officer (CEO) as saying at a press conference that; “We are not troubled by what emerges now with regards to the Grade Six Assessment results, largely because it is almost to be expected”. This statement is symptomatic of the misplaced thinking and belief of the Ministry of Education.
What is sad is that the CEO’s comments were essentially supported by the Education Minister. Clearly, this philosophy must have a direct impact on the nation’s education policy and ultimately what transpires in the public schools in Guyana. I have written numerous letters in which I challenged the effectiveness of the current education policy which I consider to be unable to meet the challenges of many of our students. These recent utterances have definitely vindicated my position.
The buck stops at the Minister. She ought to know that the public schools in Guyana have a record of successes at the National Grade Six Assessment. She must therefore cease the attempts to justify and make excuses for this unacceptable state of affairs. Her approach to address this situation must begin with an explanation to the nation as to what has been done to revive the successes of public schools like Stella Maris Primary, Graham’s Hall Primary, Leonora Primary, Quamina Primary BV, St. Margaret’s Primary, Success Primary E.C.D, St Agnes Primary, St. Gabriel’s Primary, McKenzie Primary and the many other public schools around the country.
How can the Minister feel that she is doing a good job in public education when, year after year, she finds herself in the halls of the private schools making announcements of top performers at the NGSA?  As we celebrate the achievements in the private schools we must ask what we have done to cause the disparity between the public and private school systems to be this deep, and how we can help the public schools to regain their ‘glory days.”
I call on the Guyana Teachers’ Union, the Parent-Teacher Organizations, parents and the entire Guyanese society, to call out the Ministry of Education for its dismissive attitude towards our teachers and students in the public schools system.
I have said time and again that every year the Ministry of Education is allocated millions of taxpayers’ dollars to improve education for our children, and the fact that public schools continue to perform poorly in comparison to the private schools, at national examinations, would indicate to us that the monies are not effectively utilized. It might therefore be time to launch a full investigation into the entire public education system.
Our children cannot continue to function in a system that does not guarantee them results. Our children need administrators who believe in them, respect them, and see them as wanting to achieve, regardless of the odds. Our students need leaders in education who will work to ensure their success and not simply give up on them, as appears has been done.
Lurlene Nestor

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