Over seven decades, the Government Technical Institute (GTI) has all too frequently, missed out on both the recognition and the incremental enhancements that it has merited. The validity of this assertion is reflected in what, unquestionably, is the direction in which Guyana is moving.
Technical and vocational education fit neatly into the range of skills which, going forward, are required to drive what is now widely seen as an ‘oil and gas economy’. Perhaps more significant is the fact that the institution has, over the years, been calibrated to meet a wide range of training needs that take on board students who, at that particular stage of their lives, are not destined for a university campus… at least not at that stage of their careers.
At the GTI’s recently executed (delayed) 2019-2020 graduation exercise, the institution’s first ever female principal, Renita Crandon-Duncan made as cogent a case as can be made for the enhanced relevance of the institute in a changing environment. The accomplishments of some of the various other institutions of learning have, in turn, attracted popular acclaim. The GTI, its sustained contribution to providing both the public and private sectors with what, frequently, are critical skills, have all too frequently, been ignored, What has been the indifference of both the state and the public to the role of the GTI has been, one feels, a function of an oft-expressed view that institutions of the kind represent no more than optional schooling alternatives either for early school dropouts or for youngsters, mostly boys, who had failed to ‘make the grade’ in the academic realm and therefore had to be afforded the opportunity of ‘learning a trade’.
Those ‘trades’, were confined to a limited vocational curriculum that included carpentry, metal work, plumbing and electricity, qualifications which it was felt could earn you a ‘living of sorts’.
Officialdom in Guyana has never really done a great deal to alter that image. Mind you, regionally, similar institutions were being suitably credited. This notwithstanding, the GTI continues to make the point that there is a noble purpose to its existence, that of supporting the increasing significance of technical and vocational curriculum, given its important role in shaping the national direction.
All of this and more was embodied in the Principal’s Report on the work of the institution during the 2019/2020 academic year. Indeed, the report served as a timely reminder that over the years of its existence, less than sufficient official attention did not cause the GTI to ‘lose its shape.’ Particularly, the principal was far from reluctant to make the point that the GTI, for all of its challenges, continues to serve as a focal point for the growth of technical and vocational education in Guyana.
The GTI had been preceded, in 1931, by the establishment of a “Wood-Working Trade Centre,’ whose mission was officially limited to “offering training in Cabinet-Making and Mechanical Drawing.” It took sixteen years, thereafter before the country’s Advisor on Technical Education “recommended the establishment of a Technical Institute.”
The GTI still stands on the piece of Non Pariel real estate on Woolford Avenue, though, its salubrious environment notwithstanding, it never seemed to claim the level of prestige of its neighbouring edifices, not least, its close neighbour, Queen’s College. That notwithstanding, as the Principal pointed out in her address, the institution, somehow, made a case for expansion that saw it eventually occupying an area amounting to “almost sixty six thousand four hundred (66,400) square feet of floor space in four buildings including workshops, laboratories, classrooms, administrative buildings.”
Afterwards, she really ‘hit her strides,’ asserting that seventy years later the institute “is fulfilling a very important function in the education system… that of providing programmes of study for students to acquire the employable skills required by the industrial and commercial areas of both the public and private sectors” of Guyana. It is an assessment that settles with pinpoint accuracy on what now appears to be the reality of a GTI that has come into its own at a time when the focus of the institution’s curriculum is, more than ever before, in sync with the national development agenda.
Hidden not too deeply beneath the surface of a thoughtful presentation was an understandable ‘lobby’ for still further enhanced recognition of the role which the GTI is now positioned to play in circumstances where the country’s economic focus demands skills which the institution, arguably more than any other, is positioned to deliver.
The GTI’s mission, Crandon-Duncan suggests, remains incomplete. It is “still equipping… Guyanese and foreign students… with employable skills” through its seven departments that cover building, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and other departments responsible for information technology and land surveying, all disciplines that are likely to feature prominently in the country’s development matrix in the period ahead given the multi-faceted external investment interests in what is now regarded as one of the most potentially lucrative investment prospects among emerging economies in the developing world.
Contextually, the GTI now opens new vistas in post-secondary education with the Principal pointing out that the institution is positioned to cater for the students who completed secondary school studies as well as those who are employed” and that it allows for courses of study that include “Technician Diploma, Technician Certificate, and Craft Certificate” courses to which, more recently, has been added programmes at various competency-based levels.
And as if to underscore her point about the GTI’s readiness to consolidate its accomplishments up until now, she alluded to what is now the repairs and refurbishments now being effected to the Complex, including the classrooms every school year, the enhancement of the Institute as a research resource through timely additions to both its library, and to its on-line research facility. Students, she says, can “complete studies in a quiet and in a conducive environment” by taking to the lawns which are suitably appointed for the purpose.
It is difficult to evade the feeling that the primary focus of the Principal’s address was that of putting the nation on alert to the fact that the GTI may now be readying itself for what may well be a more significant part of its journey that is yet to come.
