— Senior Finance Minister pays tribute to late Deputy Headmistress of Queen’s College

SENIOR Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh on Thursday paid tribute to former Queen’s College Deputy Headmistress, Esther Cecelia Waveney Rawlins.
He was at the time speaking at her funeral service at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Rawlins retired from the college in 1989 as Graduate Deputy Headmistress and she was a teacher during the period that the Finance Minister attended the institution, a release said.
“Indeed after her retirement in 1989, Miss Rawlins, a consummate teacher, continued to teach hundreds for many, many years to come and indeed after the turn of the century. She literally shaped and molded the minds of the thousands of students who passed through her hands,” Dr Singh related.

He added that he came to know Rawlins when he joined Queen’s College in 1982 and she taught him French at CXC.

“She not only imparted language lessons. Miss Rawlins was not just a teacher of French grammar, but she taught us lessons that would prepare us for life. She was an outstanding teacher and a caring and compassionate human being. The love that she extended to her nieces and nephews, I have to say to members of the family you may not have realised it, but you were enjoying the care and passionate love that literally hundreds and thousands over successive generations also enjoyed. Because of the disciplinarian that she was, each and everyone of us will look back at the role Miss Rawlins played in shaping our lives. We will all forever be indebted to Esther Rawlins, not only for the formal education that she gave us, but also for the very important lessons in life that she imparted upon us. She was an educator of the highest calibre,” Dr. Singh said.

The Finance Minister, on behalf of President Irfaan Ali’s administration, further recognised the contributions the teacher would have made over the years to the teaching profession in Guyana as a whole.
Rawlins was a dedicated teacher who began teaching in 1955 as an assistant teacher at Tutorial High School. She later joined Queen’s College in 1973 as a foreign language teacher prior to retiring in 1989 as Graduate Deputy Headmistress with a total of over 25 years of service in the profession, the release concluded.