Education Minister Shaik Baksh talks with Guyana Review Editor Arnon Adams about issues, challenges and accomplishments in Guyana’s education system
Challenge and Controversy
Challenge and controversy are common to Guyana’s education system. Setting aside the sheer magnitude of the challenge of financing education, a condition common to developing countries, Guyana, by committing itself to providing free education from nursery to university, has embraced an additional weighty burden which its fragile economy has simply been unable to carry. Loathe as we are to admit it, free education has not delivered the returners promised by the framers of the concept. If we compare ourselves with the rest of the Caribbean an argument can perhaps be made that at least in terms of success at the conventional primary and secondary level examinations, Guyana has held its own. Moreover, despite the growing mountain of problems that have bedeviled the University of Guyana, we continue to produce our own fair share of quality graduates many of whom take the further step to post-graduate accomplishments at universities before settling for complete migration.
The failures of our education system, though, have been all too evident. Universal access to education has failed to address the challenges of either quality or equity of access to education. High levels of nursery and primary enrolment and a completion rate believed to be as high as around 90 per cent has failed to produce anywhere near a satisfactory mastery of basic literacy and numeracy skills. By the Ministry of Education’s own admission, from a “full sample” of children tested at the Grades Two to Four levels, “over 60 per cent could not read a single word in the first line of a simple paragraph.”
Where, perhaps, our education system has failed us most is in its sustained inability to produce the skills necessary to meet the country’s particular developmental needs. Setting aside the vast numbers of school-leavers who accomplish little if any achievement of real academic or vocational worth within the school system and who inevitably become part of the mountain of social problems that impact on the various other facets of national life, there is also the problem of a seeming absence of aptitude for the relevant disciplines, those that have a critical bearing on the country’s growth-related pursuits. National preoccupation with agriculture, mining and the development of an information and communications technology sector, for example, is not attended by a commensurate appetite for training in the disciplines associated with these pursuits. As a prominent local businessman put it recently “most of our students are really training to become administrators and bureaucrats without recognizing that those types of jobs are really dependent on the growth of industry and commerce which, of course, requires other types of skills.”
Challenges in Discipline
These days, the challenges in our education system manifest themselves in ways that go far beyond underachievement. Violent teen-aged crime, early pregnancy, drug addiction and pursuit of dead end jobs have become options to staying in school. Perhaps worse, schools, at least some schools, have become dangerous places where elaborately outlined but poorly implemented guidelines for the maintenance of discipline and order are useless against outbreaks of lawlessness which include high levels of truancy, student-on-student and student-on-teacher violence, reported illicit relations between students and teachers in some schools and cases of drug pedalling and drug use among school children. All of these are linked to other wider societal phenomena including poverty, poor parenting, the collapse of caring communities and loss of control by teachers who, themselves, must battle their own formidable demons.
None of these shortcomings, of course, can justifiably be laid at the door of the incumbent Education Minister. If there may be suggestions that things are simply not getting better under his watch, it cannot be denied that his are inherited challenges.
Shaik Baksh himself, sustained criticisms of his tenure notwithstanding, appears to live by an animated sense of optimism that the education system will get there…eventually. He understands too that the full realization of his personal vision will not materialize within the time-bound constraint of his own tenure as the holder of the portfolio. That is because, he says, “getting there is a process.”
Perhaps he sees his own signal contribution to that process in the piloting through the National Assembly of a new Education Bill, an attempt, at least, to conceptually capture the major challenges in a single piece of legislation and to fashion procedures and practices out of which, hopefully, positive change will come long after he has gone.
Managing Education
Much of his preoccupation with remedy appears to take aim at the management of education, and, he says, part of the purpose of the new Education Bill, is to “put into law” the “decentralization of the education system.” Though Baksh accepts that education is a far too unwieldy portfolio to be managed “from the centre” he is, he says, not unmindful of the challenges associated with decentralization. Some of his own officers have been fretful over the sloth and complexity of a process that essentially allows cumbersome regional administrative jurisdiction over the administration of education in the respective regions and even Baksh himself concedes some measure of impatience over what he says is sometimes “a communication gap” between the regions and his own office. Inevitably, questions have arisen regarding the competence of regional political appointees and civil servants to intervene in matters that have to do with education. Still, Baksh insists that decentralization “is the only way to go.”
Baksh accepts decentralization, it seems, purely as an imperative of logistics. “This country,” he says, “is a large country. It is almost impossible to have a centralized management of the schools’ system. We have a thousand schools spread across this country and what that means is that we devolve some amount of power to the regions themselves.” He points out that there are Regional Education Committees in the regions which are there to oversee the interests of education though he is quick to add that “whether they have been performing as laid down is another matter.” There is an undertone of cynicism in his pronouncement that leads you to the view that caution restrains him from putting it differently. The new legislation he says, “will try to improve the efficiency of the flow of information from the regions to the centre.”
Enhancing teacher education
Whenever the challenges confronting the education system come up for official contemplation, qualitative and quantitative issues associated with the teaching profession inevitably arise as well. Official documentation associated with efforts to enhance teacher education in Guyana concedes that “in Guyana, many teachers enter and remain in the profession without the necessary academic qualifications and/or professional training.” Three years ago an estimated 42 per cent of nursery, primary and secondary school teachers remained untrained and if this, perhaps somewhat unfairly, has been described as “the primary contributor” to low student achievement, it is, nonetheless, a shocking statistic that points unerringly at a serious flaw in the regimen of teacher training.
Baksh points to the Ministry’s most recent initiative to revamp teacher training – a World Bank –funded project named The Guyana Improving Teacher Education Project (GITEP). What GITEP seeks to do is to marry the resources of the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) and the University of Guyana in an initiative the scraps the existing Trained Teachers Certificate and offers, first, an Associate Degree I Education at the CPCE then, a further two years at the University leading to a Bachelor of Science Degree. The new teacher training regimen comes on stream in September, quicker, perhaps, than expected. Questions still linger about issues to do with necessary curriculum adjustments and challenges associated with teaching resources at both CPCE and UG to meet the higher tuition levels demanded of a degree programme. Additionally, the likelihood of longer periods before a ‘fully trained’ teacher can be placed in a system which, even now is seriously short of qualified teachers, also cautions about the dangers of rushing into radical change.
Among other things, the new teacher training programme, by offering trainees a degree at the end of their effort, seeks to attract a higher quality of entrant. The problem is, of course, that at least up until now there is no indication of an attendant increase in emoluments for the graduating teachers which, of course has long impeded the pursuit of teaching as a career, compelled the CPCE to compromise its entry level qualifications and ensured a sustained flight of skills from the teaching profession.
Baksh asserts that initiatives have already been underway to create an improved CPCE ahead of the full implementation of the GITEP programme. One of what he says are his many “task teams” has already seen to the “reform” of the Board of the College. “I have reformed the Board. Because of my concerns about quality assurance I have changed the management. There are some new people there.” It is his bluntest comment on the what he perceives as less than high levels of management at the College and the quality of its graduates. There are too, concerns about the quality of teacher educators and Baksh says that the remedial measure being pursued is a Masters Degree programme at the University of Guyana for teacher educators. “Most of them only have a first degree.” Here again, there is no mention of better pay and that, as Baksh is undoubtedly aware, could torpedo his entire plan to produce a better quality of teacher.
Teacher retention
Teacher retention appears to be one of Baksh’s primary concerns. An estimated 633 trained teachers have reportedly left the public education system over the past three years and teachers are reportedly leaving the system at the rate of around 8 per cent annually. Better pay, wither in the private education sector, the local private sector or in schools abroad is the primary reason for the flight of teaching skills. Baksh says he supports the option of extending the retirement age for teachers from fifty-five to sixty. He is aware, he says, of “the pool of talent and knowledge” that goes into retirement with the teachers. An “advancement” has been made to Cabinet and he is awaiting the outcome.
Schools’ management
When you ask the Education Minister about the quality of internal management in schools his response is more deliberate. The stability of the schools’ system depends in large measure on the quality of their headships and Baksh concedes that the system of attrition that remains the principal criteria for upward mobility sees teachers assuming headships of schools without many of them being “ready” for that level of responsibility. There is, he says, an 18-month schools’ management programme through which 700 senior teachers have already received some measure of training. He is, he says, yet to study evaluative reports submitted to him that seek to measure the extent to which that programme has had any real impact. While the participants are to be awarded certificates at the end of the period of training Baksh says that he is contemplating a further six-month internship that will give assessors “a chance to go in to the school system and determine to what extent the training has made a difference.” After that, only the deserving ones will be certified.
Education bureaucracy
The sheer sloth – some of which is, perhaps understandable – in bringing change to the education system is itself a problem. The Education Minister appears to have no shortage of plans, proposals, “task teams” and legislative contemplations which he seeks to infuse into the system. Part of his problem – and he concedes this – is with the sheer volume of resources which it will take to implement the various changes. Lying on his desk at the time of this interview were two formidable documents the titles of which appeared to suggest that further changes in both the primary and education systems are contemplated. Whether or not he has at his Ministry the human resource capacity with which to effect those changes is a matter on which he is far from unequivocal though he drops a strong hint about the need for higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness at the level of officers serving in the regions.
Curbing violence in schools
Of late, the Ministry of Education has come under increasing criticism over the phenomenon of violence in schools and one is not inclined to be altogether persuaded of the Minister’s view that the assignment of Guidance and Counseling personnel to the various regions is helping to resolve the problem. Up until now no verifiable evidence of this has been forthcoming. The sheer number of schools in the system and the geographic spread of those schools requires numbers of trained personnel which the Ministry simply cannot afford. Baksh is upbeat about the idea in incorporating a Guidance and Counselling element into the teacher training curriculum. The problem, however goes beyond teacher training. The Ministry of Education’s advocacy of Parent Teacher Associations, while embracing the notion of the parent and the community as stakeholders, does not appear to have met with more than a modest measure of success. If it is widely recognized that parents have a critical role to play in managing children’s conduct and performance within the school system, the available evidence suggests that there is still a considerable degree of detachment between schools and parents. Again, Baksh concedes that this is an area “for improvement.”
Baksh accepts the importance of the relationship between the home and the school. He is stern on parents. “We have to take them to court. There is no other way. We have gone other ways. We have resuscitated the Parent/Teachers’ Associations. We already have a tool kit prepared for distribution about how we can get better parent participation.” He says too that “in the last couple of months” the Ministry has made it clear that the effectiveness of heads of schools will be judged, at least partially, on the extent of their success in embracing parents as stakeholders in their schools. Under his watch too the number of Schools Welfare Officers has been increased from twenty to sixty and a growing Guidance Counselling Unit is in place. He restates the veiled threat that the Ministry will up the ante against errant parents.
The National Grade Six Assessment
The Education Minister pronounces on his concerns about the extent of the curriculum for the National Grade Six Assessment with a clarity that is unmistakable. “The extent of the content of the examination (four subjects) is too much for the children. He asserts that “we don’t need Social Studies and Science” as part of the Grade Six examination. “Not that we are not going to continue to have these as part of the schools’ curriculum and I have already said that I want to make a change.” The change Baksh is contemplating is to return the Grade Six examination to a two subject examination and, he says, the change could well occur as early as two years from this year’s examination.
Loss of authority
That apart, discipline has become further compromised by loss of authority at the level of schools. Setting aside schools’ failure to consistently apply the Disciplinary Manual – a weakness which teachers blame, partially, on unacceptable external (some say political) intervention to overturn disciplinary decisions – breakdowns in the regimen of discipline and good order at the levels of both school and community have bred new and frightening levels of child as well as parent insurgency, the confrontational levels of which have intimidated many teachers into silence. Reports of pockets of drug-peddling, in at least one urban school – which, reportedly has been ignored by thoroughly frightened teachers – attests to the complex challenge that discipline has become.
Accomplishments
Baksh’s apparent enduring optimism is located in what he considers to be some bright spots that still bring a measure of illumination to the system. He notes for example, that the results of the regional CXC examination point to the fact, comparatively, that Guyana continues to hold its own. Here, he compares expenditure on secondary education by the various other CARICOM countries, extrapolating that comparative examination results suggest that Guyana is doing at least as well as the rest of the region. Critics, however, point to significant local student underachievement in specific subject areas, notably mathematics and the sciences and the impact of these failures on their readiness to pursue ‘relevant’ studies and secure jobs in the sectors that are short on talent.
The Education Minister believes too that much has been done in the area of curriculum development. “We have done a lot of innovative things at the nursery and primary levels through the BEAMS project. From time to time we have expositions where we see the resource materials and curriculum guides that have been developed.” Again, he is quick to concede that he is not “one hundred per cent” happy with the level of implementation.
Science and Information Technology
Curriculum weaknesses in the areas of science and information technology can hardly be concealed and the Education Minister concedes the implications of these weaknesses for the realization of the human resource requirements necessary for national development. He says that World Bank funding will make both science and information technology laboratories possible for both the Cyril Potter College of Education and the University of Guyana, in the process, masking the point about the lack of IT savvy among teachers. “They are lagging and I am aware that the focus of new technology means that they have to be trained; and we are training. We plan too to expand the IT training to the regions.
The appointment of a chief education officer
The sheer magnitude of the Education Minister’s agenda renders the growing controversy over the appointment of Acting Chief Education Officer Genevieve Whyte-Nedd a needless additional burden. When the question of him being blamed for blocking the appointment is posed he responds that “I have no control. I have no say, whatsoever.” That, however, is not the whole story. When the issue of his own prior assent to such an appointment is posed the discourse on the appointment of a Chief Education Officer is extended. To the question as to whether the Public Service Commission has asked for his recommendation on the appointment the Minister responds with a definitive “no.” To the question as to whether he would entertain such a recommendation he responds in the affirmative. To the question regarding rumours regarding a virtual breakdown in communication between himself and Whyte-Nedd the Minister says “we have had a good working relationship. I do not know where this talk is coming from. If I have a meeting here she attends and if we make decisions she implements the decisions.” He goes further. “A CEO’s job,” he says, “straddles a lot of abilities and in this Ministry CEOs have been coming up the ranks. Some have up through the primary ranks, some through the secondary ranks and some through the nursery ranks.” He adds that there are several other substantive positions inside the Ministry that need to be filled and that the Ministry wants them filled. On the question as to whether he would give his assent to Ms. Whye-Nedd’s appointment, however, the Minister refuses to be drawn. “When that time comes I will deal with that.” There is an air of finality to his pronouncement that signals definitively that the matter, at least for the purposes of this interview, was closed, a circumstance that did not allow for the Minister to be asked to rationalize the baffling dichotomy between his own claim to a “good working relationship” with Ms. Whyte-Nedd and his studied avoidance of any pronouncement on whether or not her appointment is a deserving one.