The diversity issue and certain occupations

Feb 20, 2019 Editorial

The situations, observations, and accompanying whispers are out there in the public spaces. Albeit on a still muted and limited basis; but it is out there making some rounds. There is a problem at the Public Service College: it has, self-admittedly, a diversity problem.
Reasonable thinking is that this institution would have attracted unwanted attention and much public comment already, given its state of affairs in this regard. Without a doubt, some of the comments, perhaps a great deal, would have been harshly critical, maybe justifiably so.
Other national places have not been spared. It is alleged that GECOM has a diversity problem; some would share the same concerns about the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force, particularly their respective high commands. It is an age-old lament and groan.
Similarly, the University of Guyana could come in for that criticism and complaint at its management levels. The list could extend indefinitely in a land that presents a broad canvas of even broader ethnic diversity. It is a nation where there is the increasing tendency towards numerical closeness in the two major races; and greater gains in higher education in those ethnicities that find themselves much lower on the demographic scale.
Into this sensitive, controversial, and heaving milieu, there now comes the Public Service College. Observations are that the organization is, indeed, heavily populated with Afro-Guyanese. The issue at hand is: should this be considered deliberate, accidental, or the result of force of circumstances? Unuttered in any public media so far is whether there is a constructive (and instigated) boycott of this entity by other ethnicities in Guyana, especially Indo-Guyanese.
In some places, Indo-Guyanese have manifested keen interest and steady determination in being present and visible. Yet they are neither at the Public Service College. They are neither present nor visible in the student body or the teaching and administrative ranks; the upper ranks to be more precise. The question persists: is this purposeful or a consequence of events on the ground?
A senior official of the same college has gone public to lament the response to advertisements and the rest. Unsaid was anything relative to the quality of those few (if any) who did demonstrate some interest. How far did they fall short? Did they even measure up to requirements and expectations?
In the next instance, and this being Guyana the unthinkable is more than possible, it could be that there is a whispered campaign to bypass the Public Service College advertisement invitations and notices with a sinister objective in mind. It would then stand as the poster child (yet another) for the prejudices and discriminations of the agents of the incumbent administration, and the administration itself.
As roaring siren and dazzling strobe lights go, this as good a way to achieve a nefarious goal.
There are allegations that the equivalent of this has been done with monies earmarked for works in outlying areas where there are heavy Indo-Guyanese concentrations. The plan, allegedly, is to squeeze the constituency of the faithful, so that its members will be sufficiently dispirited and outraged to blank anything positive about the new people out of mind and consideration.
Against these possibly contrasting contentions is the fact that the Cyril Potter College (teacher recruits) does draw a reasonably diverse grouping. In the meantime, the nursing schools and the profession tell their own story of culture, thinking, and the reluctances associated with that particular kind of career in the minds of many locally-based Indo-Guyanese.
Which is in the case of the diversity situation of the Public Service College? That is the question.

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