I am utterly shocked by the report in the Stabroek News on December 3, that Evan Persaud, UG lecturer, admitted to using profanity and sexual innuendo in the classroom, and justified his stance by saying, “This is how people will talk to them out there… this is the nature of this business.”
What is the present opinion of the Chancellor of UG on this matter? How does the University Council view Mr Persaud’s use of profanity and sexual innuendo in the classroom? Is the Students’ Council taking this without dissent? What about other civic and religious organizations in Guyana? And is Evan Persaud still an executive member of the Indian Arrival Committee?
In my years of undergraduate and graduate classroom experience, I have never heard profanity on the tongue of a lecturer or professor. And about “this is how people will talk to them out there…” well, I have a feeling that Mr Persaud’s “talk …out there” is very different from that of many.
It is rather sad, sickening and repulsive to hear expletives used in the minibuses, in public and even in some expressions in the media in Guyana. Unfortunately it has become so commonplace that it is hardly noticeable. But to have the use of profanity and expletives in a university classroom?
Profanity is sleazy, loathsome and scuzzy expression, used by many whose vocabulary is limited, to have a cheap (and dirty) way out to ‘impress’others.
No effort should be spared to sanitize the classroom of such filth.
Yours faithfully,
Devanand Bhagwan
