Dear Editor,
I APPLAUD the government for its focus on education. Large amounts of resources have been devoted to educating a modern workforce to meet demands, especially in the emerging energy sector. Unlike during the period of the dictatorship, this government is not engaged in propaganda that is passed off as education, but is serious about real, meaningful education that provides practical training for workplace demands.

Professor Munniram Budhu in another paper praises the effort towards an education policy, especially as it relates to foreign language requirement. Foreign languages should be in the mix of training for a modern-day professional workforce. Students should decide which foreign language (s) to learn.

Like Prof. Budhu, I know ‘a lil thing’ about education, having been an educator for over 40 years teaching in the natural and social sciences and mathematics.

Education must be geared to provide opportunities to the new generation for development opportunities for their own needs, as well as for the national purpose.

As a sovereign nation, it is high time that we have our own independent education policy – not propagandistic information for political purposes as Burnham did post-independence under his de-colonisation mantra — but meaningful education that would not turn away the population from education as under Burnhamism. We need a new education policy geared towards promoting growth and development. We should not continue to follow a traditional education policy handed down by erstwhile masters or those who sought dominance of the society, using propaganda for self or the interests of one segment of the nation. Education must be inclusive and must serve the interest of all – well rounded in academia, culture, language and religion, as it is has been in the US, India and elsewhere. In New York schools, students have freedom to learn the home or cultural language of their nationalities or parents. Guyanese, especially the native peoples, should also be given similar freedom.

We should not train Guyanese for a workforce in the metropolis as has happened since the 1980s, with some 90 per cent of our post-secondary graduates migrating to work abroad. Training should be geared towards domestic needs.

Having studied in India and spent a considerable amount of time there, I suggest that our government take a look at its education policy. Ghana also has a good education policy.  Guyana, like India and Ghana, and so many other countries, inherited a system of education created by our colonial masters to serve their own imperial interests. Sadly, when Burnham created an education system, it was to serve his authoritarian and supporters’ interests. India established an education system to serve their own development objectives – Prime Minister Nehru did not engage in propaganda after assuming the reins of power. Nehru and succeeding leaders created IITs, IIMs, science institutes and medical schools, etc., to meet India’s development needs, having been previously exploited for centuries by European and Moghul invaders. Indian university grads have been among the best educated and trained in the world, so much so that westerners (plus Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand) have been recruiting graduates by the millions from India’s elite universities to man businesses, universities, firms, research institutes, and investment agencies. Students rejected from top Indian universities are gobbled up by American Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton and other leading universities in the world with scholarships.

Like India, Guyana must have an education policy to train youths to meet our needs. Students must be inculcated with skills that encourage a sense of questioning and reasoning. We need skilled workers for factories, oil and gas, the Public Service and for our planned industrial phase of industrialisation (Wales Industrial Complex) as envisioned by Vice-President Jagdeo, and professionals to manage our new economic ventures such as gas to shore, hydro project, energy projects, hotels, tourism sector, agro-industries, forestry, etc. We need computer programmers, analysts, forensic experts, cyber-security specialists, and several other experts for the current information technology era. We must provide vocational and other training that provide opportunities for jobs.

We do need a language policy. As we expand economically, with business people and diplomats coming from all over the globe, there will be a demand for translators. Students must be encouraged to learn foreign languages, even making it mandatory in secondary schools and university graduation. In the US, foreign languages are mandatory in high school. When I did my first MA degree, passing a comprehensive exam in a foreign language was required for the degree; I did Spanish. For my second MA, I did French. For my PhD, I used Hindi.

Dr Budhu made reference to Sanskrit, among the oldest languages in the world. Hindi is more apt, since Sanskrit is not widely spoken. Sanskrit is considered by scholars as the mother of many Indo-European and Asian languages and as a classical language does not attract much interest among the current generation of students, except for its relevance in the field of computer technology. Sanskrit was the language of schools in India; small numbers of people use it, preferring Hindi, English and their regional language. But the beauty of Sanskrit is, it is semantically exact, according to Guyanese language scholar Dr Satish Prakash, who taught languages and worked in the computer field for over 30 years. Computer language must be unambiguous, with each symbol having only one meaning.  That is how computers operate – language of principle of certainty.  In most languages many words carry multiple meanings. But in Sanskrit, a word or symbol has only one meaning. It is bound to its desired meaning – verb form, and 8th case ending, etc. There is no ambiguity in meaning. No other language has that feature. In computers, like mathematics, language must be precise. In that sense, Sanskrit is useful in computer and students can be encouraged to know its relevance if not the language itself.

To address our needs in education, we should set up independent institutes of higher learning. With rural people neglected in the establishment of tertiary institutes, new ones should be located in different regions rather than in Georgetown. We should establish more independent higher education entities – geared towards research and development and vocational training – and a language institute. These can be government managed or private, or in partnership between public and private sectors.

Education policy must aim at providing education equally to all of diverse backgrounds – ethnicity, regional, and socio-economic status.

Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram