TOMORROW, September 3, schools across Guyana will reopen after a two-month break. It is the start of the new term and the new academic year but with all that has happened over the past few weeks, are we really heading back to school?

The Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) and the Ministry of Education (MoE) are at an impasse vis a vis negotiating the demands for teachers or at least moving the process along. At least up to Thursday, when I wrote this column, the strike was still on. In fact, coming out of the meeting with the Department of Labour and the Ministry of Education just a few hours earlier, members of the Union affirmed that the strike was continuing.

Now, for the first time, for as long as I have known myself, I am not going to put on my school uniform and show up to my school for the new term and that saddens me. But what saddens me more is that people- rather, decision makers-would leverage children and their education to negotiate their demands and their solutions to these demands.
Don’t get me wrong, I personally do not believe that the 40 per cent being demanded is too high, but I will concede that I am ignorant to government finances and the capabilities of the nation’s purse. But for me, teachers do deserve the increase.

I’ve had teachers who have stayed back into the afternoons to give my classmates and I extra lessons to fix our grammar, pro bono. I’ve had teachers who worked through an entire syllabus with me, through their lunch break, just because I couldn’t understand organic chemistry the first few times. I’ve had teachers who started classes at 07:30 hrs, three days a week to accommodate conflicting schedules and my tendencies to get full marks on my IAs.

I might be biased because in retrospect it seems as though I had fantastic teachers, but coming back to the point on hand, I am just disappointed that the thought of gambling with children’s education could even arise-
utterly disappointed.

Ms. Fraser, a very vocal parent at Queen’s College said it best when she spoke to Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry, during her visit to the school. For Fraser, it isn’t a matter of siding with the government because there is cognisance that the increase cannot be afforded nor is it a matter of siding with the teachers because they deserve the increase. It is about the children who need to complete the curriculum in a specific time. And what about the children who have to sit the National and Regional examinations? The ones that need to get their SBAs and IAs done as soon as possible?
And to think, there is a whole (A WHOLE!) contingency plan which seeks to tap retired teachers and students from the Cyril Potter College of Education, to teach children during this strike.

While I’m glad that there’s a backup plan in place, based on what I know of my own school, Ms. Fraser said it best again: “You send a teacher from Cyril Potter’s College to First Form Queens’ College, the children will chew them up.”

Chief Education Officer (CEO) Marcel Hutson, on the other hand, told the Guyana Chronicle recently: “It is so important for our children to receive the best possible education and at the MoE we are keen in ensuring that systems are in place so that our children can be taught and taught properly.”
With this in mind, how can either side even fathom that children will in any way receive the best possible education with a strike in place or with dissatisfied teachers forced to mould the minds of children in overpopulated classrooms and limited resources?

The argument is out there that maybe not all teachers go beyond their call of duty and maybe few of them only teach the bare minimum because that is all that is required to take home their salary at the end of the month. I don’t know what is the correct counterargument to that, but I do know that teachers, in the public system especially, have a myriad of issues to contend with and they surmount these daily. And teachers are the ones who mould the minds of the next generations.

And I still remember what it’s like to prepare weeks in advance to start out at school on the first school day in September. It isn’t a day that should be tainted in any negativity. So whether the strike is still on or not when you read this, understand that my concerns lie with the students, the hardworking teachers and then the government. In that order. Let’s not think about gambling with children’s education again.