Guyanese students face bleak future due to ongoing strike

May 23, 2024 News

The teachers at the protest site during a discussion with First Vice President of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) Mariska Williams.

Kaieteur News – Students across Guyana are currently facing a bleak future with the ongoing strike of the teachers. The two terms students would have missed due to the previous and ongoing strike by the teachers will in fact leave a huge knowledge gap.

This was highlighted by the First Vice President of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) Mariska Williams on Wednesday at the protest on Brickdam in front of the Ministry of Education. Williams said: “These two terms that we would have missed here, it’s going to create a really huge knowledge gap, reason being we just came out of COVID. We spent about two years trying to correct that period for those children who were in that period, and some of those very children are still in the system especially at the primary level, and so while they would have lost two years before we can safely say that they would have lost another year right now, because these are the two most important terms to take you to the next level.”

She added that going over the period and the work would mean that the educators, “we drop again and you would see the Grade Six Assessment dropping further. If you recognised this year in the Grade Six Assessment, you had true and false in the Paper Two which should be application and matching. So, if right now where we would have already come out from the COVID period and for the first time in history, I can say you have true and false in a Paper Two which should be application at Grade Six. What will happen to these said children here who are preparing for Grade Six next year?”

A teacher holding a placard.

“The knowledge gap is there, it means that teachers will have to work overtime to correct this, we don’t have a problem because we have done it before. For the parents, they too will have to play an integral part because it’s not only what the teacher does but they would have to step up,” Williams said. When asked by this publication what is the Union’s next move, Williams noted that, “That is a question you have to ask the Chief Labour Officer what next because the government side has remained resolute and firm in what they want and as such, the Union will also remain resolute and firm in our decision mandated by the membership.”

On Wednesday, during their protest exercise outside of the Ministry of Education, a teacher in an invited comment said, “at the pace things are going, we will end up with illiterate future generations, because we will not return to the classroom unless a tangible consensus is met.” She explained that the students would have already missed almost an entire year of school and previously during the COVID period, there was also missed years. Another teacher stressed that since, “government is refusing to come with a proposal of their own to counteract what the union is putting forward, it is a clear indication that they do not care. “Neither do they have education at the center of their hearts. If education was government’s main focus, they would have come to a place and negotiated for the betterment of the children,” the teachers said.

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First Vice President, Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), Guyanese, Mariska Williams, students

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