Latest update May 13th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 09, 2014 Letters
Dear Editor,
During the tabling of the 2014 Budget in Parliament, the Ministry of Education was allocated the largest share of any ministry, to pay teachers’ salaries and improve the system. Over the years many individuals, especially parents have argued that Guyana has not been receiving a fair return on investments made in education. This school of thought has gained traction in many circles, especially with the high failure rate of the hard sciences at the CXC exams over the years.
It is estimated that more than 65 per cent of the country’s primary and secondary schools are failing in their education delivery to students. Also emerging from this estimate is a most disturbing fact which is threatening to become a trend. In many of the nation’s underperforming schools there is a lack of effective and transformational leadership. This comes as no surprise, however, especially since those schools have the largest number of poor students and leadership appointed by the PPP, and not based on merit.
Most educators would agree that effective leadership is among the most critical characteristics of effective schools. Effective leadership requires qualities such as having shared vision and goals, as well as promoting teamwork and collegiality. In many of our schools there is hardly any teamwork. A necessary culture of collegiality is all but non-existent due to the petty and discriminatory politics brought into the education system.
The ethos and culture of many of our schools is one of discord, resentment and disunity. The weak management systems in place in many schools have resulted in many irregularities going unchecked. It bears thought that, even with best training from the Teachers’ College, some individuals are just not cut out to be principals, yet many are appointed because of party contacts or who they know at Freedom House.
Where a principal has lost the moral authority and respect of his/her staff, it is impossible for that principal to motivate and inspire his/her staff. As a result there is bound to be a trickle-down effect.
The partisan manner in which the minority PPP regime continues to appoint members to school boards adds to the chaos and ill-will within the education system. The continuation of this practice does not benefit the children, the schools involved, or the society. This contributes greatly to the failing status in which many schools now find themselves.
In all of our underperforming schools there are PPP-appointed school boards which are also underperforming. In many instances these school boards are just an extension of the petty politics practiced by the PPP to rubber stamp the party’s decisions. This has been going on for years in many schools and there seems to be no end in sight to this ridiculous practice.
The Education Ministry urgently needs to audit the composition of all school boards, and where there are issues regarding conflict of interests and incompetence of board members, this must be remedied with immediate effect. But the Ministry has made no attempt to streamline the composition of boards. The need for more accountability and transparency within the education system is most glaring and must be addressed promptly in order to improve the delivery of outcome to students.
Also, there is a lack of transparency in the appointment of senior officials in the Ministry of Education. This practice of senior appointments should not be left to the whims and fancies of a few who use this privilege and power to reward the party loyalists even though they are not qualified. All this does is to create strife and malice among teachers, principals and educators.
There should be a zero-tolerance approach to nepotism and cronyism in the administration of education. We should not allow a few PPP self-serving school administrators to mess up our education systems and schools. Many in the government use appointments to this tier of school management to silence opposition, squash creativity, and safeguard their own positions.
As an aside, the education ministry must also implement more rigid measures concerning the evaluation of administrators’ financial stewardship and how it impacts the viability of our schools. There have been too many cases of irregularities in recent times resulting from misappropriation of funds.
The Ministry of Education needs to issue stricter guidelines to monitor such affairs. In fact, more frequent and unannounced external auditing should become a part of best practices to ensure accountability.
Despite pockets of excellence within the education system, more needs to be done to fix an ailing system. This will undoubtedly call for stronger and more decisive leadership. Guyana’s education system is at a critical juncture and tough and unpopular decisions must be taken by the Ministry. It must strive towards adopting and implementing better policies with regard to the education of the future generations.
All children can learn and indeed, all children must learn. However, wherever there is discontent and strife, the learning process will be negatively impacted. Our policymakers must work to ensure that each child’s learning outcome is fully maximized. We cannot continue to have more failures in the education system.
“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” — Aristotle.
Asquith Rose and Harish Singh
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