On April 9th at a public meeting at the West Demerara Secondary School, President Ali announced that with effect from this year, government will pay the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) fees – for both the CSEC and CAPE – for up to eight subjects for all students sitting those examinations.
“Today, I want to make a very special announcement… beginning this year, as I speak to you, parents are preparing to pay for their children’s CXC fees…(I) have good news for you. With effect from this year’s CXC, the government will pay, in full, the cost for at least eight subjects, for every single child in the public and private schools,” the President announced.
This will undoubtedly be a popular announcement. Families from impoverished backgrounds have faced challenges at exam time with deciding how many subjects could be afforded for their child to write. Many have had to restrain their child’s ambitions or borrow money from relatives, neighbours or their workplaces and repay the debt. Now, that burden is dissolved and students will be able to sit the core subjects and more at both CSEC and CAPE.
The President’s announcement came without any supporting arguments and background and it is for that reason that reservations have to be entered.
The first of these is that writing CSEC and CAPE subjects cannot be seen as the ultimate reflection of success in education. More student will now likely take at least eight subjects at both CSEC and CAPE but there is no guarantee that they will be better prepared or successful. Pass rates could actually be at risk if a larger number of less able students were to sit the exams.
So what steps will accompany the underwriting of the cost of the subjects? We know that one of the most important ingredients in improving outcomes across the board is the quality of instruction. Stabilising this element requires better pay and other incentives for teachers. The recent controversial three-year wages and benefits deal signed between the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) and the Government is no sure indicator that that will occur. The deep disaffection from the strike lingers. The GTU and the government should be able to say whether teachers are satisfied and have remained in the system.
The migration pull of teachers to the Caribbean and further north remains robust and despite the largely infrastructural transformation in the country there is no certainty that teachers will be immune to the draw of chain migration.
If teacher availability and quality is an issue on the coast how much more difficult is it in interior schools which have been traditionally underfunded and under equipped? The President’s announcement may well have been seen as oriented towards the coastal strip. Even fleeting visits to the interior underline the stark disparities in the level of equipping and the services on offer. Will children in Region Eight have the ability to take subjects that require science labs and foreign language teachers for instance? Might it not have been better to invest more in ensuring that hinterland education was brought up to a higher standard first? This is the type of discussion that should have preceded the President’s announcement.
What will be the cost of this measure announced by the President and is it sustainable? President Ali’s government has operated in recent years as if nothing is unaffordable. The announcement on exam fees makes no calculation whatsoever of the cost of these benefits and what could likely happen if there is spurt in the population size. Might it not have been a more prudent course to say that those parents wishing to avail themselves of this benefit in public schools were free to do so rather than also cover the costs for those in the higher brackets of income?
It is clear that President Ali sees himself above being accountable to Westminster parliamentary norms notwithstanding the executive presidency hybrid in play here. In yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek, letter writer Roy Paul had this to say about the President’s announcement: “It is very disconcerting to see the President of our country taking the stage in all our affairs that I feel should rightly involve the Ministers and other officials of the ministries that concern the various issues being addressed.
“This can only be interpreted as an effort to glorify himself as all-knowing and all-powerful, which we have witnessed in history as the beginning of the making of a dictator.”
It would have been a much different circumstance had the President announced that he was of the mind to make the cost of exams free for up to eight subjects at CXC and that he had commissioned the Minister of Education to examine the matter and report back to him on the pros and cons together with costing after which a motion would be tabled in Parliament and if successful supplementary allocations sought for the financing of the initiative. After all, there wasn’t a hint of this intention in this year’s budget which was presented just a few months ago. This haphazard declaring of benefits not only tears up annual financial planning but strokes the egos of those who are at the centre of such disorganisation. The finances of this country are not to be committed for such extensive expenditure at the whims and fancies of one person. Such behaviour – as with the cash grant last year – will fundamentally undermine democratic governance and the role of Parliament. Are there plans to review the results of this underwriting of the exams costs? What will be the benchmarks for the adjudging of success?
Given the arbitrary announcements by the President – including the making of tolls free for major bridges and the halving of energy bills – the government should commission a study on the sustainability impact of these measures on future governments. This should take account of the expected decline over time of oil revenues – prices will likely fall over the next four years along with weaker demand for petroleum due to decarbonisation. Account should also be taken of inter-generational equity which this government apparently does not recognise together with debt servicing, allocations for reorienting the economy away from oil and gas and catering to emergencies. The government is unlikely to do this but it doesn’t mean that the opposition should be similarly delinquent. Its MPs have a responsibility to undertake such tasks and are compensated for such.
Finally, this is an election year. One has to ask whether the incumbent sees any need for self-restraint in spreading election goodies for the sole purpose of ensuring re-election. More advanced democracies recognise the need for a level playing field and to circumscribe the natural inclination of the governing party to go into overdrive no matter the risk to the country. The stakes again are clearly high at this election. The incumbent will not want to risk the loss of access to the bonanza that will come from Atlantic oil. Better sense must, however, prevail.
