Education is being used incorrectly in Guyana
independent thinking, as most learning is by rote. Further, neither Guyana’s Constitution, nor Guyana’s twentieth century history forms part of the secondary school curriculum. The contexts of ethnic violence that occurred in our not so recent past need to be widely known and studied so they are not repeated. There can be no nation building without social cohesion. There can be no social cohesion without ethnic reconciliation, and there can be no ethnic reconciliation without the acknowledgement of historical truths. Failure to give adequate attention to the more encompassing and humanizing purposes and outcomes of school curricula has not only made many Guyanese vulnerable to misinformation (fake news) and propaganda, but has also condemned them to cruder modes of behaviour.
d) The academic curriculum which favours verbal ability discriminates against male students whose abilities and interests tend toward the psychomotor – the combination of mental and muscular activity. As a consequence many male students find school uninteresting, are not motivated and eventually drop out, or are pushed out. A number of male dropouts become engaged in crime and other antisocial activities.
e) A capacity assessment conducted by the World Bank around 2000, concluded that the Ministry of Education did not have the capacity to manage the education system.
This lack of capacity limited the ministry’s ability to execute required research, and find solutions to the myriad of problems that emanated from unresolved issues. Since that time the situation has deteriorated. f) There has been insufficient educational research by scholars in the field.
Through the past four decades or more, not sufficient attention was paid to Guyana’s public education system by scholars in the Faculty of Education (now the School of Education and Humanities), University of Guyana. It is inconceivable that teachers can be adequately prepared to function effectively in a system of which so little is known. The future viability of the University of Guyana itself as an institution of higher learning is intricately bound to the quality of the education process at the lower levels of the public education system.
g) Throughout the decades insufficient financial resources have been allocated to the education sector. Recent global research by the Pew Research group in the USA suggests that the countries which spend a high proportion of their national wealth on education do not spend much on public order and safety, such as policing. Those countries that spend lowest on education end up spending the most on public order.
The examples cited above represent only a partial sketch of the stark realities that characterize our education system. For some time now the situation in the education sector can be described as seeing the trees, but failing to see the forest. To transform this system into a quality education system demands all hands (including retirees) on deck; a broad multi-sector approach that is both collaborative and cooperative.
If education in Guyana is used correctly it will build for us a peaceful, caring, sharing, democratic and prosperous Guyanese nation with the capacity for sustainable growth and development.
If continued to be used incorrectly, it will continue to destroy us.