Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for finance Dr Ashni Singh on Thursday hailed the contributions of late former Queen’s College Deputy Headmistress Esther Rawlins, whom he called an educator of the highest caliber.
Singh paid tribute to Rawlins during a funeral service at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Brickdam and Camp streets.
Rawlins retired from the College in 1989 as Graduate Deputy Headmistress and she was a teacher during the period that Singh attended the school.
“Indeed after her retirement in 1989, Miss Rawlins a consummate teacher continued to teach hundreds for many, many years to come and indeed after the turn of the century. She literally shaped and molded the minds of the thousands of students who passed through her hands,” Singh was quoted as saying in a press release issued by his office.
It noted that Singh came to know the teacher when he joined Queen’s College in 1982 and she taught him French at CXC.
“She not only imparted language lessons. Miss Rawlins was not just a teacher of French grammar but she taught us lessons that would prepare us for life. She was an outstanding teacher and a caring and compassionate human being. The love that she extended to her nieces and nephews, I have to say to members of the family you may not have realized it, but you were enjoying the care and passionate love that literally hundreds and thousands over successive generations also enjoyed. Because of the disciplinarian that she was, each and every one of us will look back at the role Miss Rawlins played in shaping our lives. We will all forever be indebted to Esther Rawlins, not only for the formal education that she gave us, but also for the very important lessons in life that she imparted upon us. She was an educator of the highest caliber,” he said, while recognising on behalf of the Irfaan Ali administration the contributions the teacher made over the years to the teaching profession in Guyana as a whole.
The release said Rawlins began teaching in 1955 as an assistant teacher at Tutorial High School. It added that she later joined Queen’s College in 1973 as a foreign language teacher and served until 1989, when she retired as Graduate Deputy Headmistress with a total of over 25 years of service in the profession.
