Dear Editor,
It is widely agreed that education in Guyana is free. But is it, really? One might beg to differ had one witnessed the scene in outer and central New Amsterdam and environs on the first day of the new fifteen-week school term. I witnessed several hire-cars transporting combination chair sets in their trunks — presumably to the various schools in New Amsterdam and Canje. There were even persons fetching these chair sets and walking through the Princess Elizabeth Road within the township. They all had their children’s best interests at heart. All they wanted was for their children to be comfortably seated on the first day of school.
I remember I went through a similar experience more than ten years ago as I began my secondary education at the New Amsterdam Multilateral School. The chair I started with in first form lasted me until I reached fourth form. By then it had been damaged and I brought it back home.
It can then be said that the practice of parents buying combination chair sets and furniture and the like for their children whether in primary or secondary school has been going on in Guyana for quite some time. Several schools in New Amsterdam and East Canje, at the moment, are without a full quota of furniture for children and teachers to be comfortably seated in their classrooms. This is a very uncomfortable situation because not every parent is financially able to buy this expensive furniture for their children. These are extremely hard times.
Right now, the school where I teach — Vryman’s Erven Secondary School — is in a dire situation. We don’t have a full complement of furniture. Students are seated three to a bench. Others are seated on a bench with no table for writing and working. Teachers do not have a place to sit in the classrooms whether it is to mark the students’ attendance registers, the students’ workbooks or to do other constructive work. There are hardly any teachers’ tables or chairs anywhere around the school. It is so hard to stand up for seventy long minutes during a double-period lesson. How can you snatch a seat from students who themselves need one? This will only encourage teachers to leave the classrooms more frequently to relieve their tired feet somewhere where a seat is available.
So, you see, this not only affects students and teachers, it affects the entire process of learning.
This is an SOS call for help to those in authority. Not only for Vryman’s Erven Secondary but all primary and secondary schools across Berbice and in Guyana as a whole which have a furniture shortage.
When children are not properly seated in their classrooms learning cannot take place. The second need of the human being on American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s pyramid is actually the need to be safe — to be comfortable. When children are choked up and cramped, sitting three and four to a bench, their concentration span will be down and out. All those poor children will be dreaming about is getting a proper bench and desk to be comfortable in the classroom.
Vryman’s Erven Secondary School, some time ago, received several pairs of benches but no desks. The school is still awaiting its full quota of furniture, including the desks which were never delivered, for last term.
I know the region has a very hardworking Regional Education Officer, Ms Shafiran Bhajan — please help us. Why should parents have to provide school furniture? Could someone do something? For God’s sake, it’s Education Month.
Yours faithfully,
Leon Jameson Suseran
Editor’s note
We are sending a copy of this letter to Region Six Education Officer, Ms Shafiran Bhajan, for any comments she may wish to make.
