Teachers, students and the 10%

Aug 31, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – If there is a victory to be claimed that privilege belongs to the children about to go back to school in a few days.  They and their parents and guardians can breathe a sigh of relief that the wait is over, the uncertainty now stilled.  Schools will be ready for business in September with classrooms humming with the sound of children at work and at play.  The voices of teachers will be heard, as they care for the young minds put into their hands during most of their daylight hours.  It will be school as we have always known it.  The concern at the back of the mind is whether we are fooling ourselves.  The reality is that this country could be engaging in a weak game of pretense, while hoping for the best.  Namely, that all those who were enmeshed in the long and bitter teachers’ strike swallow their pride (and hurt feelings), pick up the pieces and move along with energy and determination.  The right numbers would have been the remedy to a point, but the reaction to what was finalized and is now official has been less than inspired.

By any standard it could be said that the teachers’ strike was bruising, with brutal not an exaggeration in the thinking of many Guyanese.  Teachers have every right to think that they are being force-fed what is indigestible because it is so unrealistic.  Ten percent for 2024, with 8 and 9 percent for the following two years might sound like the ingredients of generosity.  But not in the context of where Guyana is, especially where cost of living is, and how it rubs the noses of Guyanese into the dust daily. There is the strong belief in many quarters that even double that 10% still would not have helped Guyana’s teachers conquer the crushing cost of living situation that they face, and before which they are forced to give ground daily.  There is no question that 20% (or some number in proximity) would have better equipped them to confront the daily challenges posed by cost-of-living realities.  But 10% is a drop in the bucket considering that everyone knows where the prices for basic items are and seem to be heading.  It just never seems to be in a downward direction, and even when such is the case, it is not for long.

Aside from the nuts and bolts of percentages, teachers believe that they are on good grounds in thinking that 10% is just one more straw in a long line of insults from the current government.  They can point to all their good faith concessions involving prior unaccounted for years when collective bargaining hung in the balance.  And they can point out that those have not been reciprocated with one similar gesture, not even one, from the government.  They would be right, for they know how the government has quickly found billions to support other areas that are a problem for this country.  Though the preference by some would be to forget and move along, there are some things that are sure to rankle still.  Among them were the vindictive attempts by the PPPC Government to gut their efforts at ventilating their grievances on the streets, through the underhanded methods employed.  In holding their heads high and fighting a strong fight for better, teachers were reviled and abused in old and new ways.  But now the expectation is that all will be consigned to the past, and that the smooth and sweet will take hold when the school bells ring and the doors open.

Teachers must wonder what happened to the honesty of those who were loud in their calls that they [teachers] be dealt with fairly just a few short years ago. Was there any honesty in them then, or just the usual ugly politics of Guyana in action?  Using the same measuring rod, is 10% now representative of government honesty, or is it another expression of the poisonous nature of Guyana’s politics?  Whatever it is, the classrooms and lunchrooms and parent-teacher meeting rooms will not be unscathed.  Some wounds take a long time to heal.  These things should matter, except that in Guyana they don’t.

• children, Editorial, students, teachers, victory