Dear Editor,
My wife and I, senior citizens have a foster daughter nine years old who is a fourth grader at the Saxacalli Primary School. This child is a very slow learner, so we were glad when we learnt that school would be reopening. Sadly our joy quickly turned to frustration. And why?
The headmistress who is also class teacher for grades three and four is at home while we untrained parents are left to struggle with a system of teaching that we know nothing about. It is a losing battle for my wife and only very slow progress is being made. When these lessons are finished there is no one to mark them. In contrast the assistant teacher Mrs Carlene Lorrimer visits the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays to work with her pupils and mark work sheets.
In frustration I called the Head Teacher at her home and she informed me that the ministry says that it is not necessary that she come to Saxacalli. It is total nonsense that a University-trained teacher is told that she could stay away from school when the illiterate and semi-illiterate struggle with this seemingly hopeless burden. Saxacalli Primary with a student body of only eighteen can observe social distancing and other restrictions so I can see no reasonable excuses why this unreasonable situation should continue.
These politicians stay in the capital and make blanket decision thinking that what applies to Georgetown applies to Guyana in general. No wonder that education in Guyana is on the decline. The system is creating dunces. Are the Regional Education Officers a part of decision making? If not they should be, they are the ones in touch. It is all talk and nothing else. A huge joke, but I always say “laugh story fuh small bai ah det to crapo.’ I pity the little two-legged Guyanese crapos.
Yours faithfully,
EC Lobert
