Dear Editor,
In company with my wife and assistant, we joined the protest line on Brickdam to support the teachers and the GTU in their justifiable strike. I did the same thing in 2018 and was critical of the sloth in response by the then Coalition Minister and Ministry. The representatives this morning, in their chants, said not being in the classrooms is not political but economical. Why we decided to show solidarity with the teachers is because our teachers are the worst paid in the region and deserve much better. Teachers spend most of the hours during the week with our children and have, particularly in today’s environment, the heavy duty and awesome burden to not only give an education to our children that is fundamental but also to help mould the character of our new generation.
The callous, cruel response by the Ministers and the Chief Education Officer is unpardonable and beyond belief. How can anyone trivialise the business of pedagogy at this time when throughout the world there is rapid advance in technology, science, sport and culture? Today I also learnt that this government plans to utilise grounds along Carifesta Avenue for commercial purposes. If true, an abomination. A flagrant violation of a covenant given to the people of George-town, when the City was established on the heels of slavery and indentureship. I hope for the sake of my children’s children and those of every Guyanese that we are not being governed by a collection of cultural barbarians who will preside over the hemorrhage of our nurses, teachers and others who are already going to the Caribbean and beyond, only to escape the suffocation and indignity of being unable to cope with the rising cost of living and people in charge of decision-making not representing the important pillar of teachers in the foundation of a nation state.
I expect that parents and their children will from tomorrow join the picket lines, so that the Government understands the cause of the teachers, irrespective of their political, religious or other persuasion that they deserve better. Our Government can begin by respecting our Constitution and collective bargaining and that the leadership of this country should not, as it seems, encourage the widening of the gap between the haves and the haves not. Because when you frustrate teachers in the public sector, you then widen the already worrisome situation where heavy paying private, primary and secondary schools will proliferate, condemning to ignorance and perpetual poverty those who cannot afford these fees. So much for a party in office who claim credentials for being working class.
Sincerely,
Hamilton Green
Elder
