Latest update May 23rd, 2024 11:41 AM
Jun 19, 2010 Editorial
It is either that Guyana is trying desperately to get children out of school whether they are literate or not or trying to make a mockery of the education system.
Indeed, the nation is already worried about the growing number of illiterates in the system. Children are leaving school incapable of even reading notices and signs. These are the people who have been produced to replace the elderly population who now occupy places in the world of work.
It is with shock to both teachers and others who have a vested interest in education when they learnt that the Education Ministry has issued a directive to schools that no child should repeat. This means that whether a child does well at the internal examinations to warrant promotion or whether he or she does poorly that child must be promoted.
There is a system of streaming where the more academically inclined child is placed in a class with other academically inclined students. The slower child is similarly placed with his peers. The problem comes when the teachers decide to treat even the slower child as though he is academically inclined.
The Education Ministry at one time, having recognised that different children had different inclinations, created what became known as the community high schools and the multilateral schools. These were designed for the children who were more technically inclined and who could better serve the country as artisans and tradesmen.
Somewhere along the way these schools became regular secondary schools and the result is evident today. In the first instance they did not attract the best teachers and in cases where there were good teachers they did not receive the requisite support from others in the system.
Now when the Education Ministry announces that no child should repeat it has sent a message to the students that regardless of what they do, they have to be promoted. They, not appreciating the value of education, have decided that they need not complete assignments of work to enhance their educational standing.
One offshoot is that they are challenging teachers in greater numbers; they actually tell the teachers that it matters not whether they do well. This, then, impacts on the discipline within the schools. In short, the Education Ministry is telling the teachers that it also matters not whether they teach. And there are teachers in the system who are lazy or indiscipline enough to adopt that attitude.
The people who introduced formal education had studied the implications. This must have been the reason why they made some people pay for higher education. In 1976, the then administration, in an effort to allow every Guyanese a fair chance at acquiring the best education, opted to make all schools co-educational.
Earlier, it had gone further by adopting all schools; those that were owned by the church or were in the hands of private entrepreneurs became government property. This was because the then government decided that no child should have to pay for education. Indeed there were those whose parents could not afford that cost.
With free education it was intended that more people would have benefited from an education; the rate of illiteracy should have declined. Today, even with free education, people are being denied the right to a proper education. And these people, who are being denied, now accept that they do not need an education.
Surely the Education Minister failed to think through this decision. He must have recognised that he was sending a signal to children that they need not work hard to gain a promotion. He failed to see the implication because one is certain that later in life these children would expect all promotions to be automatic.
The issue is frightening. Already there are too many illiterate young people, some of them easy recruits for drug dealers. We are also aware that some of these people offer their services for just about every nefarious activity (the Freddie Kissoon case is just one example, the killing of the Hague woman by a contract killer is another.)
The Education Ministry may wish to reconsider this decision.
Every country demanding more and more taxes, not Guyana.
May 23, 2024
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