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Advocacy for the restoration of free education
DEAR EDITOR,
His Excellency David Granger, in his Emancipation Day speech announced and underscored that 2020 – 2029 will be the decade of development for all Guyanese, placing an emphasis on education. “Every citizen, every Guyanese has a right to education,” he said.
Mr. President, we welcome this promise to the Guyanese citizens, Sir Winston Churchill said “we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Mr. President, we the workers welcome the free education stated in Guyana’s Constitution, from nursery to university.
Ten years after the act of Emancipation, secondary education began when Queen’s College opened its doors, not to the native population, but to the children of expatriates who wished their off-spring to have a classical education while they were serving in the territory. Eton and Harrow were thus transplanted to Guyana.
Three years later, in 1847, the Ursuline sisters began a school now known as St. Rose’s which was followed in 1866, with the opening of St. Stanislaus by the Jesuit priests. The latter took place under the Episcopate of Bishop Etheridge. These schools catered exclusively for the education of the young catholic. When Alfred Thorne set up his Middle School which catered for ambitious elements in the lower classes, a hiatus was closed in the intellectual attainments of varying segments of the population.
Thorne’s Middle School was to produce Guyana Scholars and no less than 218 passes at the College of Preceptor’s Examination. The multitude was stretching forth, and more easily towards the fruit on the tree of knowledge.
I feel obliged again to extend a word of thanks to Mr. Lincoln Lewis. I have always regarded him as one of the more courageous and principled trade unionists in Guyana, as I am aware Mr. Lewis has stood up, for or against, what they and many others including those who lack the courage to make their views known, consider to be right or wrong, as the case may be.
I for one, have no doubt that when this period of Guyana is written in, say fifty years from now, Mr. Lewis would be among those who would emerge with considerable credit. Mr. Lewis, being on the advocate’s side for well over a decade, has pointed to free education from nursery to university, that is clearly in the Guyana Constitution.
Yours faithfully,
Sherwood Clarke
General President
Clerical and Commercial Workers’ Union
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