This is the period during which post-CXC students await the results of their examinations, wondering as the days go by just where their school days have gone and, perhaps, just what the next, possibly more challenging phase of their lives, will bring.
If it isn’t migration – for those youngsters who are appropriately positioned to depart these shores taking their potential and their promise with them – it is, perhaps, a tilt at the University of Guyana, where, we are told, their parents will face an appreciable increase in tuition fees or the beginning of what, hopefully, will be a brief enough job hunt.
A group of youngsters who had gathered for ice cream and a chat on Saturday were overheard being mostly concerned about what sorts of options their CXC results would bring them, their choices depending, of course, on their grades and ranging from ‘doing law’ at UG to ‘finding a job.’
Choices are also linked to financial circumstances. Children who come from modest homes often can’t wait to earn their own money. Others who may prefer to wait, to secure a university degree first, are likely to be concerned as to whether UG will still be affordable after the fees hike.
None of the children who had gathered on Saturday seemed certain as to just where their CXC results would take them. Those who wanted jobs were unsure as to what sort of job they wanted.
Eventually one of the youngsters, tactlessly, as it turned out, suggested “working in a ministry.” It was as if someone had thrown an elephant in the room. The response commenced with a collective gasp after which, with one accord, they erupted in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Even the author of the idea appeared to see the funny side of it.
On the other hand if you were old enough to have been a public servant thirty or so years ago you would probably not have found the revulsion for today’s public service among youngsters on the threshold of the world of work amusing.
The whole episode served as a timely reminder that we live in a different age, an age, it seems, of diminished loyalty to noble but antiquated ideals and institutions. Forty or so years ago it would have been a considerable accomplishment to join the public service (even in a modest clerical position at a modest salary) and over time to climb the career ladder. Not so these days. The disincentive of peppercorn rates of pay is made worse by the fact that, over time, the public service has become jaded and public servants have lost the ‘shine’ they once had, as much on account of the low esteem in which they are held as on account of the paucity of their pay.
One of the most demeaning spectacles in contemporary public life is that of public servants displaying circumspection in the face of menacing political bosses, something which has become a source of the most acute irritation. Many of these put upon public officers, are loyal, highly capable functionaries who grin and bear it out of what they say is a concern over reprisals that might compromise their pensions.
When you add to that circumstance the fact of what, in most cases, is their poor remuneration, you get a better understanding of why the children who went out for ice cream and a ‘gaff’ about their future on Saturday are not prepared to endure the hardships, and all too frequently, the humiliation of a public service which is still a great distance from meaningful change.
