Dear Editor,
I write with great apprehension and angst both as a seasoned educator (in Guyana and the US) and journalist with 40+ years of experience having written for publications in the Caribbean, North America, and the Middle East and elsewhere. In contemporary times education pedagogy focuses on imparting skills to students so that they would become incisive thinkers and problem solvers. In this context critical thinking, the ability to analyse and synthesise are of utmost importance. Besides, the education landscape is supposed to focus on empowering the student to be able to independently self-express.
It is in this context that I find it rather frightening that students are being eliminated from Mash contests because their skills sets foster self-expressions that seemingly criticise aspects of social life – output of which the government does not seem to approve. Not only is this informing the student that he or she cannot use the skills acquired from within the education system in real life but it is bound to be traumatic to young minds who would be flabbergasted that such skills apparently have to be applied selectively per the perspectives of the government of the day; in short students must be political conformists and nothing more.
Why are the nation’s youth being sent such a message? What precisely do the powers that be think would happen if these students are allowed to display their skills acquired within the education system? What does this say about freedom of speech in Guyana? What does it say about a government that touts democracy? What does it say about the kind of individual the government wants to produce? Or the fact that government seems to want to tell young people what they must think and what they must say? What does it say about the political party to which teeming individuals like me gave our all as we put our lives on hold for decades, without seeking any returns whatever?
Dare we hope that someone in authority – the Minister of Education, the President – would put a stop to this and reach out to those two young persons with reassurances that a mistake has been made but that will not happen again? Dare I hope that all four of the major newspapers would publish this letter to show that they fully support freedom of expression even if they do not think much about the writer?
Sincerely,
Annan Boodram
My Heart Walks With You
The Caribbean Voice
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