Despite its importance, Education was not on the agenda at the PPP Congress

Dear Editor,
Despite the fact that our national education performance has been very poor and has been so for a very long time due to poor leadership from the minister and the ruling clichÉ, it was not discussed or even mentioned at the just concluded PPP Congress which was held in high school. This poor performance in education has continued despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on transformation efforts since 2010, which have made negligible impact on national education outcomes, thus rendering the recurrent budget to only maintain the status quo. In spite of its importance, improving education at the public hospitals and at UG were not on the agenda at the PPP Congress. Neither was the high crime rate mentioned nor illegal drugs trafficking. Corruption which is at every level of government was barely discussed by a small group of delegates but did not gain the attention of the leaders.
In fact, the congress primary focus was to cuss down the opposition and the private media and spread propaganda about how the opposition AFC and APNU were stalling development which is far from the truth. However, some delegates did not buy into the propaganda and have acknowledged that corruption and crimes have negatively impacted development in Guyana. Some have even supported the opposition that the reckless spending of the taxpayers’ money by the PPP cabal should be reduced.  Like many others, they reminded their leaders to focus more on public education where too many children are failing and that UG has become too expensive for the children of average family to attend.
We believe that the Minister of Education’s decision to promote students to a higher grade even though they have recorded failures in a lower grade is most bizarre and sickening.  Common sense should tell the minister that if a student cannot perform in a lower grade, how that student would do better at a higher grade.  Is the Minister setting up these students for a much bigger let down later in life?
There are indeed schools which are performing well and have earned the reputation of what is termed locally as the “good schools” but there are many others which have growing rival gangs; indiscipline; poor leadership; limited intervention programs; irrelevant curriculum and marginalized students. These students for some reason may have lost their way, but we owe it to them to provide an opportunity for them to become useful citizens.
While we must hold the minister responsible for the poor performance and failures of schools, there is a much bigger dragon to hold responsible than the Ministry of Education-the PPP government.  The government should never use political affiliations to decide on the prompt allocation of school funds, as this causes a delay in providing much-needed resources for the students’ development.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh