Needing a new act for a known fact

Jun 18, 2015 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
Like Mr. Bostwick (Kaieteur News, June 13, 2015), I am a product of an educational system that was second to none, and of which I remain eternally grateful and forever indebted to the likes of Miss Friday, Mr. I.T Henry, Miss Arno, Rudy Luck, Brentnol Adams, to name a few, and many other outstanding pedagogues.
Albeit that I received my formal education or societal preparation under the colonial rule, nevertheless, the institutions that shaped and honed us were regarded as hallowed halls of academia and education was free.
Common Entrance or Scholarship as it was then called, served as the defining moment for so many of us.  It was then that sheep and goat or bright and dunce became obvious, as Common Entrance class was the solitary path that led to the elite institutions—— Bishops High or Queens College. Other equally well known Catholic schools such as St. Stanislaus, St. Joseph, St. Rose’s, though coexisting, did not have the same academic ring as the ones previously mentioned.
When Common Entrance results became available it was always the regular schools that produced the outstanding students.  Successful students may have taken private lessons, but did not specifically or exclusively attend a private school. In 1990, free education from nursery school through university was a major reason for Guyana’s estimated literacy rate of 96 percent, which was touted as one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere.
Now the recent Grade Six Assessment results have revealed that the primary schools received a severe trouncing by the private institutions. In addition, schools in both the rural and hinterland areas have also carved out academic notches for themselves.
There is something dreadfully wrong with this picture, in fact so startlingly wrong that we must collectively sit up and pay attention.  The factors attributable to this obvious academic disparity need to be addressed, and forthwith, especially since the change that all Guyana was awaiting has arrived.
Currently the teaching profession in Guyana is one which is not getting the respect it so rightly deserves. The presenting inadequacies surrounding trained teachers in Guyana are due to the failure of the Government to readily recognize the impact of poor salaries, along with other incentives, on those within the profession, as well as any young person who may be contemplating entering the profession.
In the Guyana of yesteryear, even while in elementary school, there were students aspiring to be teachers, ones that could not wait until they were successful at their Pupil Teachers Examination. Controlled by the Ministry of Education, this exam served as a passport to a teaching career in the primary school system. The aspiring teacher who had paid employment worked under the tutelage and supervision of the Head Master or Senior Master of the primary school.
Archaic though it may seem by modern-day standards of attaining a University degree in teaching, it nevertheless proved successful and produced many, including myself, who went on to greater honour both at home and eventually abroad.
The call is out for a close examination and evaluation at who is teaching the teacher and what is being taught the teacher.  Let us not forget that students went directly from secondary school in Guyana to University in America or Britain and were able to successfully compete with those who had a benefit of a superior education from their day of birth.
Compounded to this is the issue of truancy rearing its ugly head, and to glean from one Reverend Bhose in particular, who worked actively with the East Indian immigrants in the ‘60s, the view that the system of education was doomed to fail unless attendance was enforced and parents were compelled to send their children to school.
There were truancy officers fanned out across the country to ensure that children were in school on school days. Parents need to be roused from their slumber and be held legally accountable when their school age child is not in school. Let us annex the Ministry of Education with the Ministry of Social Protection so that no child falls in, through or gets out of the crack. Teachers should also be held accountable for notifying the Ministry when the absenteeism exceeds an established level.
Now that the change has arrived, let us make a concerted effort to maintain it and let it spread like a mantle, especially around those who would be ensuring that the change is maintained. After all, remember that the children are the leaders of the future, and it is of vital importance who leads them and how they are led.
Yvonne Sam

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