Deryck Bernard entered Queen’s College in September 1960 with classmates such as Tyrone Ferguson, Roger Luncheon and James Matheson, who were all to become prominent public servants. He graduated eight years later in July 1968 with a brace of distinctions in History and Geography at the GCE Advanced level, a reputation for sedulous study and the rosy prospect of a successful career in academia.
He had gone to Queen’s on a government county scholarship after primary education at the Cumberland Methodist School in Canje, Berbice, and the Kitty Methodist School in Georgetown where both his parents served as teachers. He relished the rich cultural fare at the college, becoming an active member of several students’ societies including the Debating, Dramatic, Historical and Christian Fellowship societies, and representing the college at the music festival and the Patrick Dargan debating competition. In the sixth, he was appointed head of Weston House and deputy head prefect.
After a brief stint as assistant master at his alma mater, Deryck Bernard took a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography at the University of Leicester, UK. He would earn a Master of Philosophy degree in Geography and Planning from the same university a few years later. He began his teaching career at the University of Guyana as an assistant lecturer in the Department of Geography in 1974 under the tutelage of the late Professor Leslie Peter Cummings. Rising rapidly through the ranks from assistant lecturer to senior lecturer in six years, he was appointed acting Head of the Department of Geography in the 1978-79 academic year and Dean of the Faculty of Arts in September 1981, becoming, at 31, the youngest dean in the history of the University of Guyana up to that time.
A rigorous researcher, Bernard spent his sabbatical year 1984-85 at Oxford Polytechnic in the UK teaching and researching in the field of Urban and Regional Planning. He was awarded a research fellowship at the Humanities Centre, Wayne State University, USA, where, as visiting scholar for spring 2004, he worked on two projects ? a cultural policy as a basis for facilitating patriotism, tolerance, and national confidence in the solution of Guyana’s political and economic dilemmas and a lecture on African-Guyanese musical traditions.
The depth and breadth of his scholarship were evinced in the variety of articles he wrote and papers he presented at local and international workshops and conferences. They ranged from topics such as ‘Rastaman Vibration: An Expression of Workingman Sensitivities,’ to ‘An Historical Geography of New Amsterdam’; ‘Ancestral and Land Rights, an Historical-Geographical Perspective on a Geographical Problem;’ and ‘Education Reform and Structural Adjustment: Reflections on the Guyana Experience.’ He also published the book, A New Geography of Guyana, which supplanted Leslie Cummings’s 1965 standard text, Geography of Guyana. And, although he would hesitate to describe himself as a writer, his first fiction book, Going Home and Other Tales, was good enough to be shortlisted for the Guyana Prize for literature.
Resuming his academic career after a seven-year sojourn in politics, Bernard returned to UG in 1992 serving successively as head, Department of Geography; Dean, Faculty of Arts; Coordinator, Amerindian Studies Unit; and, finally, first dean of the newly-merged Faculties of Arts and Education which was named the School of Education and Humanities. By then in his fifties, and facing the frightening prospect of retirement on UG’s outrageously ungenerous pensions, and probably with the intention of starting a law practice after his academic career, he entered the Faculty of Law in his sabbatical year in 2004 and successfully completed the Bachelor of Laws degree. He was reading for the Certificate of Legal Education at the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago at the time of his death.
Apart from an ample academic career, Deryck Bernard enjoyed a few years in the political limelight as a public servant, cabinet minister, member of the National Assembly and party executive in the People’s National Congress. This political episode started innocently enough with the unexpected elevation of Mr Desmond Hoyte to the prime ministership after the sudden resignation of Dr Ptolemy Reid in August 1984. Searching for fresh talent outside of both the party and the public service, Hoyte offered Bernard the prestigious post of Permanent Secretary of the Office of the Prime Minister.
By another chance occurrence, President Forbes Burnham died suddenly in office in August 1985, automatically propelling Hoyte into the presidency and, not so automatically soon afterwards, into the leadership of the PNC. Hoyte’s accession to office, and the PNC’s controversial victory in the elections of December 1985, presented the opportunity to ‘de-Burnhamise’ the administration of both policies and personalities by removing many ministers and by recruiting a dream team of technocrats to chart the course that he had chosen. Bernard, fortuitously finding himself in the right place, accepted the invitation to serve as minister in the Ministry of Education.
Although Hoyte was bent on change, some ‘Burnhamites’ still had to be mollified. Mrs Viola Burnham, the late President’s widow, was given the largely ornamental rank of Vice-President and Deputy Prime Minister and the portfolio of Education and Social Development, including Culture. The appointment of Deryck Bernard, twenty years her junior, as Minister within the Ministry of Education was not likely to be easy. It was clear to all whence presidential favour flowed and wherein ministerial power was to be found. Mrs Burnham was eventually shifted sideways to the Ministry of Culture and Social Development, with responsibility for Women, Children and Young Persons and for the administration of the Social Impact Amelioration Programme, and Bernard was appointed Senior Minister of Education.
Diligent and self-assured, Minister Bernard successfully pioneered the IDB-funded Primary Education Improvement Project which contributed measurably to the rehabilitation of schools, the production of textbooks and the training of teachers; established the National Centre for Education Resource Development which also supported in-service teacher training and development; and oversaw the absorption of the Lillian Dewar College of Education by the Cyril Potter College of Education during his tenure.
Bernard’s political career could have ended as suddenly as it started. Many of Hoyte’s post-Burnham draftees disappeared with the party’s defeat in the 1992 general elections. Bernard stayed on. He became a member of the PNC’s central executive committee where his neutrality and prudence in the occasional outbreaks of factionalism won him respect on all sides. He also served as the assertive and articulate Shadow Minister of Education on the opposition benches up to May 2006 when the National Assembly was dissolved for the elections.
Bernard never pretended to be a ‘grass-roots’ politician. Rather, he was an essential member of the party’s task forces and think-tanks that brainstormed problems and hammered out policies. His personal relationship with the party leader all but guaranteed him membership of the National Assembly under this country’s idiosyncratic ‘list’ system. Eventually, though, it was his reputation as a thoughtful and resourceful person, and not patronage, that cemented his place in the party’s hierarchy. At Mr Hoyte’s death in December 2002, he was the natural choice to manage the official funeral arrangements.
A talented and versatile man, Bernard’s cultural activities complemented his academic and political persona. Most important, perhaps, was his Christian faith. When asked by a reporter a few years ago whether he was religious, he answered quickly, if opaquely, “Yes and no, because I grew up in a religious environment
