Dear Editor,
Please afford me some space to express my views on your editorial (SN: June 25, 2023) I looked at Prime Minister Rowley’s statement. He made a fundamental point which the editorial does not mention. He notes that people are using newspaper letters and columns as the basis for promotion in academia. A serious problem in academia these days has been the gradual infiltration of key disciplines for ideological propagation. Some of the ideological activists call it public-facing scholarship. The public facers want to use letters, interviews, TV appearances and columns for academic work. I have no problem with an academic doing activist work in an area he/she knows deeply about through peer-reviewed publications.
There is certain academic training like technical economics, for instance, that teaches a significant amount of transferable and dynamic knowledge that is applicable to many dimensions. For example, I did not need to be an oil expert to see that the cost and revenue dimension of the PSA has asymmetric gains for the contractor. It was elementary economics, actually. On the other hand, there is an established literature in resource economics pertaining to the motivation and history of PSAs. If one studies this literature, one gets the reason why some activists are missing the mark. Another problem we have is some folks believe that writing textbooks count for promotion in academia. It does not! Textbooks summarize settled knowledge. Academics have to be on the frontier of knowledge. Often the new knowledge is esoteric and may not be understandable to the general public. However, in time the new knowledge is distilled as settled knowledge in textbooks and practice.
As it relates to pay, UG has come some way since 2017. UG’s pay does not compare terribly to the quasi-governmental agencies and much of the private sector. We cannot compare UG’s pay with that in American academia. There is good research being done at UG. More can be done as always. I still believe that shutting down IDS was a big mistake. It was a major center for social science and engineering research. Another problem is we hardly conduct basic science and basic research – research for the sake of research. Knowledge for just knowledge. Once basic research is done through the verified channels, the commercial applications will follow; or applications to better public management. Most of our research is defined by multilateral agencies. We cannot let IDB, WB and IMF, to name a few, define the research problem for us. Sure, you want to do some consultancy because of the extra pay. But we must be aware that foreigners are defining the problem, not a local or Caribbean researcher. This is where an institute like IDS can play a key role.
Indeed, the government appears eager to circumvent UG. Perhaps because of the perception that it is a PNC enclave. That is sad! After all, UG was Cheddi Jagan’s conceptualization and, of course, Forbes Burnham established the physical and other structures. Initiatives like the GOAL have largely stayed away from UG and instead are sending students to train in some abominable overseas for-profit schools. It should be noted, however, that not all the GOAL schools are for-profits. On the other hand, we have for-profit schools training doctors in Guyana. The government (more so the micro tyrants advising the government) will soon realize this folly when President Ali’s push towards medical tourism or telemedicine reaches its natural human capital boundary. And they would not be able to quickly fill the gap with graduates trained in questionable foreign institutions. Development has to be slow and steady. It cannot be a razzle dazzle.
Sincerely,
Tarron Khemraj