Dear Editor,
I recently saw an extremely disturbing video of an American missionary preaching hellfire and brimstone in a public secondary school in Guyana (Central High School). He and members of his delegation from the Faithful Word Baptist Church ‒ an organization which has been designated a hate group in the United States ‒ apparently visited several other schools in Georgetown, proselytizing to entire classrooms at a time. This occurrence raises several very serious issues. First of all, who gave these people permission to enter these schools, was it a staffer from the Ministry of Education or individual heads of the particular schools? Was any parental consent sought? Whoever is responsible for this deserves immediate sanctioning, in my opinion.
Notwithstanding the inexplicable (to me) tendency to have prayers at public events, the fact is that Guyana is a secular nation and preaching has absolutely no place in any public school. It’s appalling also that no research was done beforehand to find out that this organization, church designation aside, is a hate group whose members have been deported from several countries. Why are foreigners with hateful agendas being allowed free access to our youth? Is this really what we need more of here in Guyana?
Another cause for concern is that fact that valuable academic instruction time was taken away and devoted to this religious evangelizing. This at a time when our students’ academic performance has been plummeting; the 2016 Grade Six Assessment test results showed only 14% of students passed Mathematics and less than 50% passed English! It is mindboggling that any adult working in the education sector, and therefore cognizant of these pathetic scores, could think it justifiable to take away teaching time and replace it with religious indoctrination.
As the widespread failure rate of student nurses on their recent examination shows, the education system of Guyana is in serious trouble and so by extension is the well-being of the entire country. Interestingly, the nursing students’ worse performance was in Paper II of the exam, the section which required higher-order reasoning such as explaining and evaluating. The fact is that prayer cannot save someone when they are sick and go to the hospital for medical care. Persons are of course free to believe whatever they want, and a well-rounded education must not only include academic instruction, but at no time should academic learning time be curtailed in favour of religious programming. We need an educational system that develops critical thinkers and produces individuals who have the necessary skills to move Guyana forward.
Finally, if the education officials of Guyana were serious about improving and expanding the curricula of the public schools, it would be better to refocus on agricultural and nutrition science, sports and physical education, and the creative arts, as well as comprehensive sexuality education ‒ something which has been recognized as critical to improving health and wellness (and mandated in the schools of several countries around the world, most recently in England) but continually stymied by MOE officials ‒ likely in part because of religious objections.
Lack of critical thinking is indeed the greatest tragedy that continues to beset Guyana today and unless that changes, there will be no progress or salvation, no matter how much one prays. I call again for an immediate investigation into this incident and sanctioning of all those responsible. We must teach the children better.
Yours faithfully,
Sherlina Nageer
