SCHOOL GARDENS, CARPENTRY SHOP AND SPORTS GROUNDS ENRICH EDUCATION IN THE NEW SCHOOLS

Mar 23, 2025 Consumer Concerns, Features / Columnists, News, Waterfalls Magazine

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CONSUMER CONCERNS

  By  PAT DIAL

Kaieteur News- In the Social and Economic Revolutions which have been quietly progressing in Guyana, the program of renewing and modernizing the Educational System has been most notable.

New subjects such as Computers and Artificial Intelligence are being introduced in the schools and the old subjects are being brought up to date at the primary and secondary levels and a serious effort is being made to extend tertiary and university education to a large part of the population by, for example, the Goal Scholarship scheme and making  attendance at the University of Guyana free.  In the drive to modernize the primary and secondary schools, the traditional philosophy which has always informed Guyanese Education from the 19th century: Mens Sana in Corpore Sano- A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body was forgotten and this failing occurred particularly in the Georgetown schools.

In the older Georgetown primary and secondary schools, in keeping with this philosophy, they always had school gardens or a carpentry room or the students would attend the Ketley Woodwork Centre and play cricket and football in open land near the school. In a few schools like Queen’s College, the school grounds catered for both the playground and garden as well as a workshop area in the school building.  Today, these facilities are a distant memory in the Georgetown schools.

In the schools which are being refurbished or newly built in the countryside and Interior, there is always enough land available to provide adequately for playgrounds and gardens and every school should have them and the planners should not lose sight of this.

In the past, the school garden was linked to the Nature Study class;  today it will be to the Biology class.  The students would be taught about seeds, their germination and the planting and caring for the young plants.  They would be taught about making beds and about how to use shade houses.  They would be taught how to store produce and to make preserves such as jams or pepper sauces or pickled onions. They would be introduced to the use of the various agricultural hand tools including the mechanical weeders which have largely replaced cutlasses and grass knives.  Fruits and vegetables which have almost disappeared from the markets should be introduced and grown and such would include sugar apples, custard apples, plumrose, sumetoo as distinct from passion fruit and vegetables such as nenwa, jhingi, granadillas, chichira or snake vegetable and radishes.  The produce should be shared out among the children, even in token amounts. The important spinoffs of the school garden are not only the students would have been introduced to Agriculture, to keep their environment clean, to create or develop their own home gardens but to help in food security of their families and ultimately of society as a whole.

Every school should have its workshop.  The students would be introduced to the usual carpentry tools – hammer, chisel, screw drivers, hand saw and mechanical saw, augers and clamps, etc.  They would be introduced to basic joinery and carpentry skills such as jointing, dovetailing, sandpapering, polishing and varnishing, They should be encouraged to bring their home furniture which is in need of repair to be repaired as part of the learning process and keep the school furniture always in good condition.  They would learn to take care of their homes and have an introduction to the trades of joinery and carpentry.

In the playground, the students should be introduced to the rules of Cricket, Football, Hockey, Badminton and Squash and to play them.  They should also be introduced to athletics. The elements of how to play each sport should be introduced to the students, for example how to catch a cricket ball without hurting one’s hands, or how to place the ball in the hand when bowling a leg break or off break or how to begin one’s hockey match in the most advantageous way or in hockey and football, how to tackle without fouling and so on.  The daily newspapers usually carry two or three pages on local and foreign sports and students should follow these so that the more ambitious and talented may be able to join teams which are nationally recognized.  In this regard, one should be reminded that the old Queen’s College was able to field Second Division National teams in cricket with individual players getting into the First Division.

Very few schools would be able to afford a special Sports Teacher or Agricultural Teacher but these could come from the regular staff who would be paid an honorarium for undertaking such added responsibilities or there could be a special Sports or Agricultural Teacher who would work with two or three schools on a schedule revolutions which have quietly started in Guyana, Educational Reform and Expansion has been one of the most notable programs. There has been much emphasis on Artificial Intelligence and expanding computer skills, introducing new subjects at the secondary levels, striving to have a large part of the population exposed to tertiary and University education by such schemes as the Goal Scholarships and building new primary and secondary schools in communities where they did not exist and renewing and modernizing extant ones.

In the Georgetown Schools which are being rebuilt or modernized, there has been a paucity of land space and little land available for school gardens or playgrounds.  The rebuilt St Rose’s School in Church Street, Georgetown is an example of this.   In the schools out of Georgetown where open land is far more available, the educational planners should ensure that the school grounds are extensive enough to accomodate school gardens and sports grounds.  Such gardens and sports facilities would help to manifest the philosophic principle on which Guyanese Education was long based – “Mens Sana in Corpore Sano”-  Cultivation of a Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body.

(SCHOOL GARDENS, CARPENTRY SHOP AND SPORTS GROUNDS ENRICH EDUCATION IN THE NEW SCHOOLS)

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