The new school year begins today
TODAY, Monday, children head back to school for the beginning of the new academic year. Some would be entering the various levels of the education system for the first time, while others would be continuing students. In addition to the students, our educators and the support staff would also be formally heading back to work after the relatively long break.No doubt, many of the students, especially those moving to new schools, would be excited about getting back into the classroom. The anticipation of the new challenges, making new friends, and engaging new teachers often serves as an inspiration to many. Not all students fall into that category; some, for varying reasons, would not be so thrilled at going back to school. Unfortunately, this latter category has been growing at an alarming rate in recent times.
This new academic year starts against the backdrop of an acknowledged crisis in the education system and process in our country. As most observers have concluded, our education sector has been in trouble for a while now. While a tiny minority of students has continued to perform excellently at the various exams, the vast majority have lagged below satisfactory levels. Reports of functional illiteracy and low levels of numeracy have been detected among our high school graduates. These observations are confirmed by teachers, parents and employers.
Despite a fair degree of government expenditure in the education sector over the years, the situation has continued to deteriorate. Teachers’ salaries are shockingly low. This has understandably resulted in the profession being unable to attract many of our first-rate graduates, and in the progressive alienation of many who have opted to join or remain. The development of the ‘extra-lessons’ industry, which is said to be a contributory factor to the overall decline, is seen as a direct consequence of the poor remuneration offered teachers.
Another issue of great concern is the poor physical state of many school buildings. Visits to many schools have revealed broken furniture, insanitary toilets, broken windows, leaky roofs, and school yards overtaken by bush. Many of these schools happen to be in the poorer sections of the community, or what are now commonly called depressed communities.
These conditions are not confined to the lower levels of the system. As is well known, our university campus at Turkeyen is by no means a welcoming space. The tales of the poor physical infrastructure, inadequate salaries for lecturers, a relatively high volume of under-prepared lecturers, and a less-than-modern library are well known to the public. While there has not been as much attention paid to the neighbouring Teachers Training College, we have been reliably informed that conditions there are not much different.
As we have editorialised before, the condition of education mirrors the condition of the wider society. A considerable decline in the belief that education offers a way out of poverty, or an avenue to social mobility, coupled with a waning confidence in the ability of those who govern to generate ideas and action to lift the society have been major contributory factors to this national malaise. Put in very frank terms, Guyana is a broken society that is in need of urgent repair.
As a post-plantation society, we are saddled with inherent institutional challenges that feed the ills we have observed above. But these are compounded by our own lethargy and surrender to the logic of the socio-political jungle. We feel that repair work needs to start with education. If we can begin to resuscitate education, we can give new life to the country. In a rapidly changing 21st Century world, the uneducated individual and country would be irretrievably consigned to lives of nothingness.
Our new government has signaled that it wants to be the education government. President Granger, himself an academic, has vowed to do something about what he has termed ”education apartheid.” He has spoken time and again about the need for lifting the poor and the powerless through improved education. He has emphasised scientific and technological education as target areas for his government.
His Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, has also been very vocal on imminent reforms, and more fundamental changes to the system. As an educator by training, he has already put his finger on the pulse of the system. Crucially, he has begun some “Education Groundings” in the communities, which we hope would be resumed very soon. It is not enough to set up a Commission of Inquiry. It is also critical that the Minister supplement his media offerings with on-the-ground appearances among the least in our midst. There would be no education revolution without the input of the people in their communities.
As we begin the new school year, the government has to move swiftly to turn the situation around. Teachers have been given a slight raise in the recent Budget. We hope more is forthcoming. We don’t have to wait on the findings of the COI to fix the terrible school buildings. A visit to the Wales Primary School, or the Stanleytown-La Retraite Primary or the Bagotville Primary on the West Bank of Demerara would reveal broken stairways, smelly toilets, and generally dilapidated buildings that could be fixed now.
The old government is gone; the new government is now in charge. They have had their moment of celebration and rhetoric. We have heard the medium and long-term plans. It is time for relief to our children and our communities. The Education ball is in your court, President Granger and Dr. Roopnaraine. You have to begin delivering.