Guyana needs objective research on critical issues

Apr 25, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Guyana, unlike say Trinidad, Jamaica, or Barbados is yet to build a sound “research culture”. Guyana is badly in need of national development research (objective, critical, scientific study of a subject) on critical issues that will help improve understanding of them, so as to help guide policy-making.
Very little research (surveys included) is undertaken at our lone university by academics, so we can have a good understanding of how various issues impact on the population and what can be done to alleviate their effects on society.
Objective research (including surveys) covering a wide range of social science subjects should be encouraged at the university or at private institutions, with significant funding from government and the private sector. Students should be encouraged with grants to assist with research. This will start a research culture among our youths that would become institutionalized over time.
Overseas colleges encourage research among students by making grants available to departments and outstanding professors. When I was an undergraduate student at City College of NY, I worked with professors who provided a stipend to students like me to assist them with lab work in biology and chemistry. After my undergraduate degree in Bio-Chemistry, I switched to the social sciences for my graduate studies.
I worked as a teaching assistant and a graduate student research assistant conducting research for several professors in History, Economics, Latin American Studies, International Relations, and Political Science as well as in the Social Science Research Lab. Several Guyanese students at CCNY and at other universities were hired by professors who received grants to help them conduct research. This helped us to develop an interest in conducting library and field research (opinion polls).
Guyana desperately needs investigation into important issues like suicide, domestic abuse, gender relations, building multi-ethnic parties, juvenile delinquency, treatment of the elderly, school dropouts, teenage pregnancy, media bias, corruption, other governance issues, public workers’ productivity, ethnic relations, ethnic prejudice, medical issues, diabetes, AIDS, etc.
And the country also needs field surveys like opinion polls to determine election results as well as people’s views on varied national issues and policies. Good scientific studies may offer very sound solutions in addressing some of these issues.
Guyana has had no significant research into issues impacting on the nation. Whoever wins the next elections should provide funds to academics and their students to conduct objective research.
Vishnu Bisram

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Guyana needs objective research on critical issues

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