Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 20, 2017 Editorial
As a people, we should make it our foremost task to leave Guyana better than we found it, but in order to do so, we must make changes to the education system. We are in a terrible place where if the country’s GDP does not increase, borrowing is not reduced, unemployment continues to rise, and imports continue to exceed exports, we would be staring at a bleak future.
It is time to take stock of how the existing system has helped to create some of the problems we are currently facing as a society.
Education should be the cornerstone for the development of the country but it is in poor shape and is failing our children. Despite the improvements made by previous governments, students are still failing Maths and English in huge numbers.
Despite some improvements in the educational system which was bequeathed to us from Britain, it remains a replica of the traditional British education model. We have an elitist educational system that caters to the rich and powerful and not to the poor and powerless. It is based on the conventional wisdom that the older schools such as Queen’s College and Bishops High School are somewhat better than the other schools.
There is the firm belief that Mathematics and the other Science subjects are superior to Home Economics, Wood Work or Agriculture farming; that being a doctor or a lawyer is for those who are bright while being a farmer, a carpenter or an artist is for the not so-bright.
We need a new education system that is not based on class or the status quo to ensure that all students have a fair chance at a quality education in order to realize their full potential and become productive and decent citizens.
But there is a bigger problem at the crux of the current education system. The nation must change its mindset. We need to change our attitudes toward teachers and the teaching profession. Perhaps we should look at Finland which has one of the best education systems in the world.
Finland’s education system is different from our education system and those of most other countries due to the fact that it has the most talented and brilliant minds in the teaching profession. Teachers and the profession of teaching are revered by the Finnish people. In fact, being a teacher is just as prestigious as being a lawyer or a doctor in Finland.
In this country, there are far too many people who use the teaching profession as a stepping stone to the job they truly crave. Teaching, like the medical profession, must be held in high esteem by all. And we ought to realize that even though teachers do not hold a dagger over the heads of students, or make life or death decisions for them the way doctors do, nonetheless, they can alter their quality of life based on their teaching methods and their interactions with them.
If we truly aspire to become a prosperous nation, then we need to select the top graduates as teachers with at least a Bachelor’s Degree in education. This may raise a few eyebrows, but in order to improve our education system, we must have the best quality teachers in classrooms.
Those who lack the passion for teaching should not be in the classrooms.We must not allow students to be short-changed by the current colonial patch-work education system, which has failed many of them.
We need an education system that is tailored to the needs of students and to the long term development of the country. This would mean that teachers must engage students in all educational activities and immersing them into the technology-rich environment in which literacy and numeracy skills are developed.
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Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
Apr 19, 2024
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We need better quality lecturers at the Teachers’-Training College’ and better quality professors at UG. with PHD. and integrity.The bottom-line is that quality teachers don’t just come from having a Degree in Ed. Quality teachers are also that breed of teachers who are genuinely interested in the development of this country……. of being able to show empathy and not being impartial to a student’s concern…….to be able to recognize and help to develop a child’s potentials and treat all students with dignity, regardless of their social and economic back-grounds. A ‘quality teacher’ is also a person a child can genuinely trust. ‘Quality teachers’ are teachers who are rounded role-models for children……Another parent at a different level.