Dear Editor,
The fact that public education in Guyana is in deep crisis is no secret. A simple analysis of our NGSA and CSEC performance will suffice to show the abysmal state of affairs that prevails in our public school system. It will also show that there is a growing demand for private education.
In 2016, 14,386 pupils, from both public and private schools, wrote the NGSA examinations and following its tradition the Ministry of Education released the results of the top 144 (1%) who were eligible for admission at Queen’s and Bishop’s. Nationally, we have 406 state schools but only 37 of them had a total of 42 students in the list, and in my own region, Region Three, of the 57 government primary schools, only 6 of them contributed a total of 12 passes to the list.
In terms of 2016 CSEC results, there were 12,809 candidate entries of which 8,269 were from public schools. Again, following its 1% tradition, the results of 157 students who obtained 8 and more, and 46 students with 11 and more grade ones were released.
In the first result of 157 students, only 19 of the nation’s 111 secondary schools contributed to the list with 120 students, of which as many as 78 were from 6 out of 31 city-based schools. In terms of regional performance not a single student from Regions 7, 8, 9, and 10 with a total of 17 schools made the list. In Region 3 only one of its 13 schools made the list with two students, while in Region 4, 2 out of 15 schools made the list with a total of 9 students.
In the smaller list with 46 students who obtained 11 grade ones and more, 9 schools together produced 30 students, with one city school alone accounting for 16. Of these 9 schools four are from Region 6 and one from Region 2. There was not a single student from Regions 3, 4, and 5 which account for 35 government schools in all. Of all the 12 schools nationally, both private and public, that have made this elite list, two of them alone account for 30 of the 46 students.
One has to remember that this analysis is based on extremely limited information released by the Ministry of Education. We will be able to do a more comprehensive review once the full report becomes declassified. Our purpose here is not to berate or censure any one or even the system, but merely to establish the background in which people make their choice which they believe will be in the best interest of their children.
How well private schools do is hard to say in the absence of all the information. We know that over the last five years the percentage of private candidate entries has remained somewhat stable but by reviewing their NGSA and CSEC performances we can see why they have become an attractive alternative.
At the 2016 NGSA examinations 6 of the 9 students who scored the highest in individual subjects and as many as 102 of the top 144 students came from 17 private schools. The fact that all of these students were awarded places at the nation’s leading state-run secondary schools, underscores the importance of private schools in laying the foundation for higher education.
In the same year, private schools accounted for 35% of candidate entries at CSEC, 24% of the passes with eight grade ones and more, and 38% of the passes with eleven grade ones and more. Such successes in private education both at the primary and secondary levels ought to be celebrated, rewarded, and emulated. Rather, instead, we have to contend with a 14% tax as a penalty for success.
But private contribution to education goes even further. The education authorities in Guyana know perfectly well that without private tutoring our leading state-run secondary schools in Georgetown, and across the country for that matter, cannot dream of the kind of results they ‘get’ every year at CSEC and CAPE. Take away the contribution by private tutors and the system grinds to halt.
In spite of the monumental contribution to the education of the nation, in many ways private schools are treated as if they do not exist. They are routinely excluded, as a matter of policy, from the many seminars and training sessions sponsored by the Ministry of Education even when such training involves officials of CXC. Even when it comes to teacher professional training at CPCE level and beyond we are required to pay for our teachers. But the ministry has no qualms claiming the performance of private schools when year after year they declare ‘our’ results.
As regards the new education tax, which is perhaps unique among the nations of the world, there is a pervasive view that persons who seek services from private institutions must have money therefore they can be burdened with additional taxes. It has been reported that this was the rationale given when clarification was sought on the tax on students. This cynical and callous view ignores the fact that many of the parents who send their children to private schools are minimum wage earners, single mothers and, in many cases, grandparents, and who are able to do so only at the greatest of sacrifices.
What intensifies the difficulties already faced by students, is that the education tax is not a solitary one. It is one of many new taxes on goods and services, from toothbrushes to peanuts, previously not taxed. As part of this bundle, the education tax will virtually cripple the ability of students to meet their commitments, and as is usually the case it is always the poorer groups that will be affected most. This is why it has been suggested that this tax will further exacerbate social inequalities. So much for social cohesion, one of the professed goals of the government, which is to seek to reduce precisely such inequalities.
The unfairness of the system is further compounded by the fact of double taxation for education. Parents who send their children to private schools, like those who send their children to public schools, pay their fair share of national income taxes which, in part, is also an education tax. They make their contribution to the national treasury. Now they are told that because they send their children to private schools they must pay an additional 14% tax. Double taxation!
Choices often come with a cost. All parents who send their children to private schools are aware of this, and because of the quality of service they expect they are prepared to pay the cost for their choice. The fee is the cost of their choice. The state has no business in interfering with this choice.
However, for the government to now tax them in the exercise of that choice for which they are already paying, is to hinder them in the exercise of their freedom. This tax is a hindrance to the exercise of freedom and a denial of the right of the child to an education.
Education is the catalyst for development, empowerment and prosperity, not sugar, not rice, not bauxite and certainly not oil as the examples of India, China, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia have shown. It should be supported at all levels, encouraged and even subsidized across the board. As the second poorest country in this hemisphere, a tax on education is an unimaginable folly that will drive us back into backwardness and erode whatever gains we achieved in the last fifty years.
Yours faithfully,
Swami Aksharananda
Founder and Principal
SVN