Boys, girls, and a little amnesia

Nov 07, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – A few days ago, I witnessed one of those moments that perfectly captures the tragicomedy of Guyanese public life. A certain school, I won’t name it, because I’m trying to be kind this week, went out of its way to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the introduction of co-education.

There were speeches, tributes, and photo ops. The event was like a love letter to progress and equality. Except for one small thing. From the way the reports in the press and on social media covered the event, you could have easily presumed that co-education had nothing to do with Forbes Burnham. His name was hardly, if at all, mentioned in the reports on the event.

Now don’t get me wrong. At the event his name may have been lathered generously with praise. Just it did not surface on the social media reports. I wonder why?

Now, I understand the temptation to forget things in Guyana. Memory is a delicate thing here. It fades faster than the paint on a speed bump sign. But this was a bit much. One would think that when celebrating the half-century of an important social reform, the person who introduced that reform might get more than a passing mention. Not a monument, not a mural—just a polite nod, perhaps, like “By the way, this was Burnham’s idea. We’re just here for the refreshments.”

The truth, however inconvenient, is that it was Burnham, yes, the man who gave us the “Declaration of Sophia,” the self-sufficiency movement, rigged elections, shortages, blackouts, and an inexplicable fondness for uniformed youth who introduced co-education. He did it belatedly, and probably because Trinidad and Tobago. But he did it.

At the time, both the PNC government and the then PPP opposition agreed it was a good idea. Imagine that: bipartisanship! Two archrivals actually agreeing on something. I almost tear up thinking about it.

The logic of co-education was simple: boys and girls should learn together. After all, they’d eventually have to work, marry, and argue together — might as well start early. And indeed, over the last fifty years, girls have more than held their own. In fact, they’ve held everyone else’s too. Girls dominate the top performers of every exam list. But whether this success is because of co-education or merely in spite of it is debatable. Studies elsewhere have shown that co-education doesn’t necessarily improve performance; it just ensures that everyone has an equal chance to be distracted by each other. I mean, if you put teenage boys and girls in the same classroom, you get education, yes, but also poetry heartbreak, and a mysterious epidemic of “missing homework.”

Burnham deserves credit. He may not have been the father of democracy, but in this case, he was at least the godfather of co-education. The policy had noble intentions, even if it was introduced partly out of pragmatism and political showmanship. He wanted boys and girls to share not only classrooms but aspirations. And, against all odds, it worked.

Still, for all the political grumbling that still characterizes Guyana, few people seriously question the policy anymore. The debate about single-sex schools has largely fizzled out, except for the occasional nostalgic alumnus who insists that “back in my day, boys had discipline” which, of course, is what everyone says right before explaining how they used to escape during classes through a hole in the fence.

But I guarantee the debate will return. Everything in Guyana is cyclical: potholes, power outages, and political credit-taking. One day, some bright spark will rediscover the “bold new idea” of single-sex education and declare it a revolutionary innovation. They’ll hold a conference, print glossy booklets, and perhaps even invite a politician to endorse the idea.

But beyond the politics and the posturing lies an interesting question: after fifty years, what has co-education really done for us? Yes, girls outperform boys. But have we truly achieved balance, or have we just reversed the hierarchy? And if boys are increasingly left behind, should we at least consider whether the pendulum has swung too far?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for an experiment. Not a grand reform, just a modest test. Let’s take one all-boys school and one all-girls school and see what happens. Call it the Co-education Reversal Pilot Project. Because in Guyana, if history teaches us anything, it’s that no idea ever truly dies; it just comes back wearing a different party colour. So perhaps the real question isn’t who invented co-education, but whether we’re ready — on a trial basis, of course — to flirt again with the idea of keeping the boys and girls apart. You know, just to see if absence really does make the grades grow higher.

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

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• amnesia, Forbes Burnham, Peeping Tom, PPP

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