There was an enthusiastic response at the National Library last week, when the Guyana Committee for the Caribbean Child Magazine launched its inaugural quarterly journal which critically analyzes and challenges the system of educating Caribbean children. The magazine, titled “Educating the Caribbean Child; Reshaping the World”,   and literally for teachers by teachers, was put together in Jamaica and authored by Tim Bailey, Principal of  the Guy’s Hill High School, St. Catherine’s, Jamaica.  Its theme is: “Building Bridges, Reuniting Caribbean Family”.
Commenting on the response to the launch, head of the Guyana Committee, Charlene Wilkinson, University of Guyana Educator and language Activist, asserted,  “I am very happy;  I am overwhelmed and think people enjoyed and felt our heart beat and shared in our vision tonight; I feel very positive about it.”
The highly glazed 48 page colour journal, in its analysis of the education system in the Caribbean, takes the position that the system is outmoded, elitist, and has only served to maintain a certain social order, inimical to the Caribbean people.  It is the expressed view that the system needs to be radically revisited and reformed to make it relevant to the people for whom it is intended in the 21st century.
The goals of the journal are, among other things:
* To present a magazine forum where ideas relevant to the culture of the Caribbean and the world can meet.
* To test priority themes as determined by readers (Letters to the Editor) and teachers’ ideas in community workshops involving teachers, parents and students, for community building.
* To give marginalized, but potentially capable students space to express innovative methods in scholarship and community leadership, for wider educational purposes.
* To enhance dialogue and cross fertilization among teachers, students, educational planners and parents throughout the Caribbean.

In a critical attack on the colonialist crafted education system, Editor Tim Bailey, in his editorial, said:  “We believe that the outmoded, elitist form of education that still exists in the region has only served to maintain a certain social order, and has been faithful in producing fruits that are inimical to us, but which we continue to cultivate.”
Meanwhile, referring to the theme of the of the journal, ‘Building Bridges, Reuniting Caribbean Family’, Bailey noted,  “It is the mantra for a publication intent on bridging the gap between success and failure, powerless and powerlessness, knowledge and ignorance, inequities suffered by a group of people: mothers, fathers, siblings, friends, brethren, sistren, taken and scattered, then traumatized by slavery.”
The publication, he says, “challenges the vestiges of enslavement and colonialism as seen in Caribbean schools and is committed to the view that the region’s growth, development and unity as one people, lie in a new creative and emancipatory education – one built on the pillar of critical knowledge which instructs teachers and students alike, of their status as a group, situated within a world with a special relationship to domination and subordination.”
The magazine has garnered wide participation and feedback from several educators, students representatives and key Caribbean icons, including the late Professor Rex Nettleford who wrote on Our Creative Diversity; Christopher Sirjune on Guy’s Hill highpoints the way in Education Reform; Ernlie Gordon on Education for Liberation, not Domestication and two contributions from local Committee Member, Charlene Wilkinson .
Guyanese Tacuma Ogunseye, who, in a letter to the Editor, opined that education has always been a powerful force in Caribbean development and its underdevelopment as well, congratulated the initiative of launching such a magazine, adding:  “Its stated commitment to ‘excellence in education’ and its innovative approach to bring this discourse to the homes of ordinary Caribbean citizens are instructive and commendable.”
And Vidydathara Kissoon, Information and Technology Specialist, who noted that there is currently a serious crisis in education, commented, “I find the magazine very readable and I think anyone who has an interest in education should have a look at it.  The magazine allows us to write about our experiences in education; about trying to reform whatever we do – be it literacy or whatever. It also addresses how we, as adults, have to educate ourselves whilst confronting what has been done to us historically.”
And Duane Edwards, a committee member who concurred with Kissoon  that education is not only a teacher-student relationship, said that it is part of an entire process of socialization. “ It’s something that starts in the home; goes on in the Church; in community organizations etc, so we’re trying to make the reach or the interest as wide as possible,” he noted.
Ms.Charlene Wilkinson, who has spent 14 years working in Jamaica also  authored “Fawaad I must’ and  “My encounter with the Jamaican Language”.
Wilkinson recalls that Editor Tim Bailey, who has visited Guyana several times, has dreamed that the Caribbean teachers ‘on the ground’, working with the children, can unite their voices in this magazine, sharing best practices, holding workshops, talking about community building and taking the schools back to the community.
“We want education to be the business of the people that are in education: the children, the parents and teachers, and feel strongly that this magazine can be one tool in that respect ” , she said.
Along with Wilkinson on the Guyana Committee are  Dr. Christopher Carrico, Anthropologist; Amerindian Research Unit, University of Guyana Ms. Wendy Rodney; and Duane Edwards, also of the University of Guyana.
Guest speakers at the launch were  Bonita Harris, Educcator/Consultant; Vidyaratha Kissoon, Commucations Technology Specialist; and Duane Edwards.