Recognition of aptitude and struggling through challenge

Nov 13, 2023 News, The GHK Lall Column

---

Hard truths…

Kaieteur News – Perfect GPAs, Chancellor’s Medal, President’s Medal, Prime Minister’s Medal, Valedictorian, Best Graduating Student in this and different disciplines.  It is enough to make the head spin, prompting thoughts of putting on the reading glasses, reaching for a textbook again, and making sure that there is oil in the lamp.

There is joy at the graduating University of Guyana Class of 2023, and the honors that the top performing students have accumulated by dint of devotion to academic rigor, more than average aptitude, and a series of sometimes unheralded sacrifices.  To all the graduating students, I extend a hand of applause, while to the cream of the crop, an extra accolade or two is added.  Well done! Godspeed onto other pursuits at still higher levels.

In terms of consistent dedication to study, and sacrifices made in times of trial, there is one student that I know fairly well.

Ms. Ruth Manbodh has done extremely well in her area of study, which is Medical Laboratory Sciences.  Ms. Manbodh was the second-best graduating student reading for a bachelor’s degree, and to her went the coveted Chancellor’s Medal.  Her success is a saga of fighting through some unusual challenges, while being confronted with the demands of the hard sciences, which can be a punishing regime.  It is in times of ordeal that the best soar in unfettered trajectory.  I think Ms. Manbodh succeeded in doing so, and it is a tribute to her surrounding cast in the home, which was itself on the toiling side.  I think that this adds some rich luster to the hard-won prizes of first graduating, and second doing so where she did.  A special word of congratulations is in order, and it is uttered in the clearest tones.

Then, Ms. Davona Bess, with whom I shared class time at the Marian Academy graduated with a degree (distinction) in Environmental Health.  It is not just effort from this daughter of Guyana, but of working through challenges, and the sacrifices made by her and her people.  Effort, effort, effort.  Now, she is going forward with specialization in her field via a master’s degree program at UWI.  From this corner of the street there is joy and praise.

Also, there was Mrs. Duclie Blackman nee Abraham, who is now the proud holder of a master’s in Urban and Regional Planning.  I know either these young people or their folks, and I share in their thanksgiving.  Let the praises ring.  Let the praises ring for the extraordinary determination and achievement of the mother and daughter graduate; the person with disability graduate; and the 72-year-old graduate.  These are singular expressions of excellence under arduous circumstances, which confirms that where there is the fire of the will, a way will be found.  Once again, it is a wonderful moment, and one that each of these graduates (all of them) honored us, and showed us the way to overachieve.

In broader terms, and less familiar ones, university graduates are a breed apart, and have a torch to carry, a certain kind of flame to uphold.

First, there has to be challenging of self not to rest on laurels, for a whole new world beckons.  Second, it is to think for oneself and not get caught up in the historic culture of Guyana, which can render the best degree and the noblest student into either a widget or statistic.  In other words, do not succumb to the allure of being a cog in somebody else’s wheel.

Third, this country is rich in natural resources, but dirt poor in quality human resources, especially leadership of compelling perspicacity, pervasive honesty, and genuine humility.

For fourth, the latter could go a long way in caring for those not as wisely lettered, not as rich in prospects, and not as potent in the expression in their rights, and of their claims to citizenship.  We need some deep thinkers in this country to help us get out of the box (es) in which we have languished.  They don’t have to be wild-eyed, radical ones, though a few of those would be sure to give some muscle and spirit to Guyana’s cause.

In another construction that ought to be inseparable from our new graduates, the weak and the poor, the naïve and the vulnerable, in Guyana need a hand to get to their feet, and another to help them make that first tentative step in this new world that is today’s Guyana.

Generally speaking, and harking back to what was said earlier, universities are usually a hotbed of ferment, compelling a mentality about ideas, and of curiosity into areas aside from books and classrooms.

We need some new minds working on some new ideas; the more of them we can have, the better this society will be.  It would be healthy to observe some of this emanating out of UG, from the students of the day.  Their life must be more than absorbing and retaining, it must be about venture to where all others shrink.  Guyana is riding on a wave.  Our fresh and bright-eyed academic products must ride the crests of those waves.

Finally, all graduates have their roles to fill, all students their part to play, and all citizens their duty to complete, come what may.  Though not of UG, I am doing mine, through sturm and drang.  So must every Guyanese with a conscience.  University of Guyana graduands from today and tomorrow must do theirs.  Take it away folks.  Make all Guyana proud beyond the parchment.  Do the part and do it well.  Best to all heading onward and upward in Guyana.

 

---

• Chancellor’s Medal, Perfect GPAs, President’s Medal, Prime Minister’s Medal

---