Dear Editor,
I believe persons wishing to choose English as their major at the University of Guyana Berbice Campus are at a sore disadvantage, since this is not possible unless one travels to Turkeyen. I applied last year to major in English and was told after a few weeks that it would not have been possible, since the number of applicants for that major was not sufficient. Either I had to drop plans of attending university or switch my major to Social Studies. I did the latter, which dozens of applicants prior to me over the years since the university’s launch in 2000 had done. It hurt me a lot to know that I was trained at CPCE in the area of English, and now I had to do further studies in an area which I did not fancy too much.
What has happened over the years is that there has been an influx of people majoring in Social Studies (many of whom applied to do English but had to switch like I did) coming into the teaching system. There would, as a consequence, be a shortage of language specialists in the school system. English is an area which I love and I would like the university to do something about this so that persons who are applying for the new academic year (it may be too late for me) can pursue a Certificate in Education and major in English and move from there to the Bachelors programme and major again in English.
The campus at Tain has more than competent people to lecture in the English major courses, so why aren’t they doing it? The university is supposedly using the criterion of the number of applicants to fill the class, but the current Admin majors class at Tain in first year numberd only three. Now why can’t the English people, too, have an opportunity to pursue higher studies in their specialized field whether it is two, three or four who applied? Our society lacks a good command of this beloved language. English results in schools are falling every day. Isn’t this reason enough for those who are in charge to allow teachers to major in English at Tain?
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)