Dear Editor,
It’s a brand-new academic school year once again signalling a fresh start for education in Guyana. One of the things I strongly oppose is Education Month being observed in September. Schools are barely catching themselves after the hustle and bustle of reopening for the new term, getting things in order, admitting and dealing with the new student population not to mention planning athletic sports among other pressing issues. Hence, I believe that schools would find it very difficult to organize and execute meaningful activities for Education Month. Also, Amerindian Heritage is being celebrated in September. I think that Education Month should be moved to October, which would coincide with celebration of World Teachers’ Day as well. Agriculture Month in October can be moved to November.
But let’s get back to the fresh start I was talking about. I believe the September reopening of the education system as it were should bring fresh perspectives, decisions and plans along with it, especially with respect to those who hand down policies in the Ministry of Education. One thing has certainly not changed this new school term: record-keeping by teachers. We are still required to produce large bundles of paperwork, while not much is being done with regard to what actually goes on in the classroom. We have to get this and that and the other to show that certain things have been done and achieved – in black and white. I am therefore calling again for teachers to have assistants to do the cumbersome paperwork. The work of teachers nowadays involves preparing more paperwork and records than the actual teaching of people’s children.
I would have readily welcomed a theme for Education Month such as: ‘Education delivery, first priority; records and paperwork after.’
I would like to see more counsellors in schools. So many welfare officers are being employed by the Ministry of Education but they are hardly seen in schools. Issues pertaining to students are another hindrance that teachers should not be dealing with. A teacher should not have to stop teaching a class because he or she has to deal with a parent or a serious offence which a child has committed. Something has to be done to get the welfare officers into the schools. Maybe visits two times a week to each school could suffice. Even this may not be enough, but the ministry will also have to address the shortage of these officers.
The ministry, I would like to believe, is concocting a strategic plan to deal with the high level of indiscipline in the schools across Guyana. What is being done with regard to the lawful use of corporal punishment in schools? Indiscipline has resulted in the habit of students being late for school and many of them missing the first half of the morning lesson. Maybe we need to look at arming teachers too in the future, as well as police officers having a few offices in schools.
This age-old problem of tardiness, which is not only restricted to schoolchildren and teachers, must be nationally addressed by all stakeholders. Teachers are pretty much caught between a rock and a hard place in dealing with late children. You don’t know if they will go straight home if they are sent home; keeping them in the sun by locking the gate is physical and psychological abuse; whipping is out of the question and even if done requires you to prepare more paperwork by recording it so you might as well not whip; cleaning the school yard is slavery, and the parent is always busy to visit the school to discuss the problem.
I do not know what it is with parents these days; they seem to have zero interest in the well-being of their children at school. I hope their attitudes change for this new school year 2009-10. You don’t see them at all after they have brought their children to register and attend orientation. You don’t see them again until or unless something serious happens at the school involving their children. The Regional Education Officer in Region Six, Ms Bhajan, in her delivery to teachers and students a few days ago urged parents to be more active in the partnership with teachers of the education of their children. It certainly feels as if educating people’s children these days is a one- sided deal with no active interest or participation from and by the parent or guardian. We know people today live busy and tedious lives, but goodness, can’t more sacrifices be made by parents and guardians to check on their children at least once per month in school to discuss matters with the teachers, and even make surprise visits to the child?
Maybe, too, PTA meetings should be held in the mornings because I’ve heard many complaints by parents that the sun is too hot to leave home in the afternoon (which is very true), and that earning a living prevents them from attending and/or spending much time at the meeting. I think parents should bring their children to school and sit with them during the PTA meetings. It certainly is a venture worth trying out.
Another thing is that many extra-curricular activities planned by schools are executed with zero or little involvement by the parents.
If there is one thing which needs the attention of the Department of Education it is the monitoring of school sports activities, especially those which will be held during this term. School sports, especially the ones where many schools meet together, have in recent years been a gathering place for those who relish vulgar behaviour. Why alcohol is permitted to be sold on the grounds of inter-school sporting events is beyond me. Strangers also see it fit to be present at these ‘educational’ events and may even start fights after the beer starts working in their systems. These things should be looked at very seriously by those in authority. There needs to be a revised policy with regard to the holding of school athletic championships, which should at least involve a heavy police presence at the venues if strangers are going to be permitted to enter and rum and beer are going to be sold.
If the Ministry of Education keeps dishing out billions of dollars each year on the education sector without even feeling the pulse beat of the system right down to the grass roots level, then taxpayers’ monies are surely being wasted or misspent.
Yours faithfully,
Leon Suseran
