Education for development

Dec 22, 2019 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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(Excerpts from an Address by HE David Granger to the Graduating Class of 2019 of the Cyril Potter College of Education)

Guyana will be unrecognisable twenty years from now. A ‘new nation’ will emerge within the next two decades. The ‘new nation’ will be driven by four, concurrent transformative processes.
The first transformative process will be the emergence of an ‘education nation’, characterised by every child being in school, every child graduating from secondary school and the country having a more highly educated workforce.
The second will involve the transition towards becoming a ‘green state’ that will emphasize the preservation and protection of the environment and the graduation towards greater value-added production.
The third will be the development of a ‘digital state’ which will connect every region, village, community, neighbourhood, government agency and household, generate ICT services and make public services more accessible.
The fourth process will be the beginning of petroleum production; this will result in faster economic growth, greater employment and economic opportunities and increased fiscal revenues.
The ‘new nation’ will require profound changes in education in which:
∙ every citizen will have access to the quality and inclusive education in schools equipped with smart classrooms, science and information communications technology(ICT) laboratories and qualified teachers and in which the disabled, elderly and indigent will be provided with support to allow them to live in greater dignity;
∙ every household, neighbourhood, community, region, school and government agency will be connected via ICT; every citizen will have a computer in every home, a roof over his or her head and sufficient food;
∙ every neighbourhood will be safe and equipped with street lights, playgrounds and parks for children’s recreation;
∙ every young person have the opportunity for employment and for developing his or her athletic and artistic ability; and every woman will be empowered and enjoy equal opportunities; and
∙ every region will have its own capital town, regional hospital, college campus, stadium and botanical and zoological park; a network of aerodromes, bridges and highways will connect the coastland to the hinterland, making it possible to drive from Crabwood Creek in the Corentyne to Sand Creek in the Rupununi.
Teachers will be expected to become the engine to drive the ‘education nation’. They will propel economic transformation. They will nurture present and future generations and equip them with the skills needed for transformational change. Teachers are the sinews of the country’s education system.
Teachers hold the key to realising a world-class education system in which every child will have the opportunity to be educated at four levels – nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary – at State expense.
Science education is at the centre of the transformative changes which are taking place. Science is:
∙ the driving force behind the expansion of communications and the development of the ‘digital state’;
∙ the heart of the exploration and exploitation of our natural resources; and
∙ the pivot to preserving the environment and protecting our biodiversity.
Science education is essential to the success of economic transformation. It is necessary to equip our students with the skills needed to be integrated into the evolving workforce.
The country will need an A to Z of scientists for economic transformation – agronomists, architects, biologists, botanists, chemists, doctors, engineers, geologists, hydrologists, physicists and zoologists and others – to help establish science-based industries, develop the ‘green state’ and propel the ‘digital state’.
Teachers are expected to lay the educational foundation of those who will become, eventually, the scientists to enhance our knowledge and expedite our development.
Teacher-training is vital to fulfilling this national mandate. Guyana is investing in teacher- training to ensure that its students benefit from the best tuition.
Teacher-training cannot be occasional or sporadic; it must be a career-long experience. Teachers must pursue their professional development by upgrading, continuously, their skills, by acquiring new knowledge and by becoming proficient in new pedagogies and technologies. Teachers who are untrained will have no place in the future education system.
We live in a multicultural country. Each cultural group has its own customs, festivals, food, holy days and traditions. Each of our indigenous peoples – Akawaio, Arawak, Arekuna, Carib, Macushi, Patamona, Wai Wai, Wapishana and Warrau – has its own language.
Education and culture are connected, inextricably. Education prepares people to live in, and adapt to, society; it preserves and transmits cultural knowledge, skills and values and propagates cultural beliefs, customs and values.
Education is a means of preserving and propagating the elements of culture consisting of its material aspects – artefacts, dress, food and its non-material aspects such as its beliefs, language and values. It is a medium through which people who live in multicultural settings could learn to appreciate and respect cultural diversity.
The public education system respects cultural diversity. It should make provision for respecting the country’s varied cultural practices.Teaching in Yakusari in Berbice cannot be the same as teaching in Yupukari in the Rupununi. Learners are not all the same yet, curricula tend to be the same, textbooks tend to be the same and examinations tend to be the same. A fourth-form learner from the hinterland said, famously: Teach me about mining, or teach me about farming…I am going to be a miner and a farmer, like my father. I do not care about finding the square root of 28.”
Teacher-education, therefore, should become inclusive and responsive to cater for the country’s cultural diversity. It has to be aligned to the labour needs of the population. It has to foster respect for diversity and, thereby, help promote greater social cohesion.
Guyana will launch a Decade of Development: 2020-2029, beginning on 1st January next year. Education will be accorded the highest priority during the ‘Decade’ which will ensure a first-class, inclusive education system. The ‘Decade’ will:
∙ enforce the constitutional entitlement of free education from nursery to university; no eligible student or teacher will ever again have to pay to attend the University of Guyana;
∙ ensure that, as early as possible, there will be at least a nursery school in every village so that the youngest children do not have to travel long distances to attend such schools; and
∙ emphasize science and technology without deemphasizing the humanities and social sciences ; science education will be taught in every school.
Trained teachers will be provided with increased incentives to encourage them to take up positions in hinterland regions so as to eliminate the present uneven distribution of trained teachers between the coastland and the hinterland. Untrained teachers in the public education system will cease by the end of the ‘Decade’, 2029.
The ‘Decade’ will evince a transformation in science education. Every school will be equipped with science and ICT laboratories; smart classrooms will be introduced, in a phased manner, across the public education system.
Government will establish a Department of Science and Technology to promote science education. Administrators will be provided with increased resources to administer schools and training institutions.
The ‘Decade’ will help to reduce the educational inequalities between the hinterland and coastland by devoting more resources to hinterland education. It will allow the training of a greater number of hinterland teachers; offer improved student accommodation and transportation; and establish more hinterland schools and other training institutions.
Teachers have enjoyed continued improvements in their emoluments and working conditions. They were awarded salary increases ranging between 8 and 12 per cent in 2016; 6 and 8 per cent in 2017; and 8 per cent in 2018.
Teacher-training will be decentralized so that teachers do not have to travel outside of their Region for training. Programmes will be made more flexible, including allowing for training teachers outside of normal working hours, so as to reduce the need for time-off to attend classes. Teachers will benefit from improved access to scholarships.
The world depends on its teachers to help bring out the best in children by encouraging them to seek the knowledge and skills needed to drive the knowledge-based societies of the future.
Your country looks to you to help to generate the human resources necessary to support economic transformation. You can be assured that your contributions will be recognized and that your labours will be justly rewarded. You have a key role to play in shaping the ‘new nation’.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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