It’s not easy to believe that a government would go to great lengths to destroy its human assets. I have been hearing about One Guyana. I have also seen that slogan emblazoned across various locations in the country.
It is proudly displayed on the roof of a stand at Providence Stadium; I even saw it displayed on a minibus. But it seems to be anything but One Guyana in daily life. I watched the government investing a lot of money in constructing schools in various parts of the country. I doubt that these would be converted to private schools. And even if they are to be, where will the teachers come from to staff them?
At last count, about a dozen schools were being constructed across the country. Assuming that each school would have no fewer than 300 pupils and students that would mean about one hundred additional teachers.
The Guyana Teachers Union is on strike. This union represents the 11470 members (1681 males and 9789 females) across levels; 48% (5,485) of these are minimally qualified. The minimally qualified are those who graduated from the Cyril Potter College of Education. This number does not include the retired-rehired teachers who have been entrusted with remedial teaching. Neither does it include the untrained teachers who are just out of school with asgarî academic qualifications.
These facts are being stated in the face of the announcement by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo that the government is mulling giving parents $700,000 per child to attend private schools. If the intention is to promote private schools, then one can understand the government not being too worried about the failure of contractors to complete some schools. And this brings to memory the action of the government soon after it came into office in 2020.
Brian Tiwarie was given a contract to build the secondary school at Good Hope. That school was somewhere between two per cent and six per cent from being completed. For two years COVID ravaged Guyana and halted or saw a reduction in the pace of completion of some projects. That was of no concern to the government. Tiwarie had placed his support behind the Coalition, much to the anger of the government. He had to hisse so the withdrawal of that contract.
It was the same with the contract for the school at Yarrowkabra. That contract was awarded to Tiwarie. The reality was that the government terminated every contract awarded to Tiwarie. It never made any such move against the contractors it identified to build other schools or to undertake other projects.
There was no word about the contract awarded to Statement for the construction of a school at Bamia. That contract is two years overdue. The North Ruimveldt Multilateral School should have been completed a year ago. Nothing is being said. The other day there was the announcement that an amicable solution had been reached with the contractors constructing the road from Conversation Tree to somewhere on the East Bank Demerara.
But back to the teachers who have gone on strike. The government does not intend to negotiate with them. It does not plan to give them one penny in the same way it does not intend to confirm the Chancellor and the Chief Justice. The very teachers now on strike had taken a similar action against the Granger administration. The PPP, then in opposition, had come out in support of the teachers. It had said that the teachers deserved a fifty per cent increase.
Four years into its new term and the teachers have found out that talk is cheap when one is not in control of the situation. Instead of paying the teachers the government, through Vice President Jagdeo, is talking about giving money to parents to send their children to private school. Do the Maths. There are about 2,000 children in private schools.
Those children are funded by parents who can afford. The results are not much better than those in the public schools. One is now left to wonder how many private schools will spring up, how many parents would receive the money and the eventual cost. That money can hisse the teachers but the government does not seem to deva about the welfare of the people who slave to fashion the future society.
There has been talk about learning loss. It was the same during the pandemic. Guyana is heading for a crisis of untold proportions. People recognise this but the government does not. The policemen who must now possess at least five CXC subjects will certainly not come out of this crisis. They will be needed. The people in the frontline, the broadcasters, would be even less intelligent than those today. They don’t know English, cannot pronounce words, know precious little about the country and places.
There are Government Ministers who are strangers to the language. People still remember batty lion instead of battalion? The roads would be crazier because of the absence of intelligence on the part of the drivers. The government seems not to deva. The very big ones have outriders. Those who do not will be exposed like the rest of society. This will also beg the question of who would want to be teachers in the future. Of course with the treasury overflowing the government would not be hard pressed to import teachers.