One of the several success stories since the assumption to office of the PPP/C administration on October 5, 1992 is the extent to which it has been successful in democratizing the delivery of education to the children and young people of Guyana. This democratization process has manifested itself in the increasing number of students who access general secondary education in the country, significant increases in students pursuing tertiary education in particular those who gain admission to the University of Guyana. The establishment of a university campus in Berbice has provided new opportunities for students from that county who otherwise would have found it difficult to pursue university education. On a recent visit to the Berbice Campus, I was greatly impressed by the great strides made by the Campus in terms of student intake and the increase in subject offerings at the Campus.
Not only are there greater opportunities for students to access education in Guyana, but there is also a much better spread in terms of student performance which in the past was highly skewed in terms of city schools. Take the recent National Grade Six Assessment or what was previously referred to as the Common Entrance Examination. The results showed that students from rural and hinterland students continue to do well with schools such as Aishalton and St. Ignatius gaining top spots at the examinations, something unthinkable during the days of the previous administration. The same is true of schools in rural communities which have managed to move away from low performing schools to schools that are much more competitive in terms of student achievement.
The same is true of the CXC/GCE examinations in which our Guyanese students are now catching up nicely with their regional counterparts. The performance gap between our Guyanese students and their Caribbean cohorts is getting smaller year after year with Guyanese even gaining the top spots in a number of subject areas including that of the overall best which Guyanese students have copped quite a number of times.
One significant point to note is that the elitist approach to education which once characterized the education system is no longer applicable. It is true that placements to top schools such as Queens College, Bishop’s High and Presidents’ College continue to be based on the merit principle but this is unavoidable until such time that other secondary schools are upgraded to a point where they could provide a comparable level of education delivery. But there has also been a general improvement in the quality of delivery of secondary education especially in hinterland communities with the establishment of new secondary schools in Regions Seven, Eight and Nine in addition to the upgrading of existing facilities.
The democratization of education delivery is manifested also in the fact that President’s College which was conceptualized by the Burnham administration as an elite school has now been transformed to a school that is now accessible to children from all walks of life including an increasing number of hinterland students who hitherto were unable to access top schools in the city including President’s College. Not that our Amerindian children were not bright enough but they were denied an opportunity to benefit from quality education delivery due to the paucity of trained and qualified teachers and an inadequacy of learning resource materials. It was not uncommon to find some hinterland schools being headed by untrained teachers some of whom were admitted to the teaching profession on the basis of SSPE passes. The net result was a recycling of mediocrity and underachievement which effectively denied hinterland students opportunities to pursue higher education. At the secondary level, the implementation of the Secondary School Reform Programme resulted in an integrated secondary school curriculum thus allowing for the entire cohort of post-primary students to benefit from a secondary programme that could prepare them for the CXC examinations. The Ministry of Education is now embarking on a universal secondary school education programme which would see the phasing out of the Community High School Programme as well as the Primary Top programme.
Today, thanks to the several interventions by the Education Ministry, accessibility to quality education has now improved. Under the Primary Education Improvement Programme over one hundred primary schools were built anew or substantially rehabilitated. Several initiatives were undertaken at the programmatic level especially in the areas of literacy and numeracy. Teacher training was decentralized through the establishment of teacher training colleges in Essequibo, Linden and Berbice. Through distance education modalities a substantial number of hinterland and deep riverine teachers were trained which impacted positively in terms of trained teacher/student ratio in these regions.
At the broader national level, an increasing number of Amerindian and hinterland students now access scholarship programmes both locally and overseas to pursue specialized programmes in medicine, engineering and other disciplines. Gone are the days when only the rich and those with access to power and influence could benefit from higher education. In every part of Guyana, people from ordinary backgrounds, sons and daughters of the working people are now the beneficiaries of higher education, they could boast of some relative or friend who is pursuing higher education at the University of Guyana or overseas.
The country has come a far way in terms of democratization of education which is one sure indicator of a brighter future of Guyana. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the students who excelled at the recent Grade Six Assessment. Special congratulations to Sonia Ghir for being the top student this year.
