I became worried as I read a letter in your newspaper yesterday; because it painted a horrid picture that, no child who learns in Guyana’s public schools, should go through. The Government has been spending millions upon millions of dollars in providing training for hundreds of teachers at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) at its centres throughout the country, to enhance and rebuild new schools across Guyana, to pay teachers’ salaries, to print and provide text-books to school children everywhere, to train and upgrade teachers’ skills, and to supervise the running of the dozens of schools across Guyana, and to have read yesterday’s letter not only brought shock to me but utter disgust, if what the writer said was true.

Teachers who short-change children in school by not turning up to teach their time- tabled classes and properly ought to imagine their children in school going through the same fate they are putting other people’s children through. Teachers are being paid a salary to get the job done and so they should carry out that job.

Of course, the workload of teachers today is so much heavier. Teachers have to not only teach in schools but also have a wide range of other tasks which very often gets in the way of them doing what they were first employed to do.

Take for instance, this: teachers have to mark students’ registers, account for each child in their classrooms at every minute of every school day, mark students’ workbooks after carefully examining same, give pep-talks to their students at the beginning of each school day, take the daily statistics from all the registers in the school, prepare the statistical board in the HM’s office which tallies the attendance for the entire school at the end of the week, organise activities in the life of the school such as: open days, prize-giving ceremonies, fairs, take-away lunches, athletic sports, debates, meetings, PTA activities, etc.

At the end of the term, the teacher has to prepare test questions along with marking schemes and tables of specification, mark those test papers—hundreds of them and very carefully too, mark Ministry of Education Grade seven, eight and nine Projects, monitor examinations, prepare Ministry’s end of term records such as reports, analysis, etc, all the while they have to be a teacher — to teach, to plan lessons, to write daily notes of lessons. My point is that teachers have so many tasks to perform these days in the public school system; however, I’ve not said this to excuse them from teaching the children which I believe is most important.

The contents of yesterday’s letter were disturbing, provided that those facts can be proven. The Department of Education in any region in Guyana has dozens of schools to look after and supervise at any given time. I do not believe that Ms. Shafiran Bhajan whom I’ve known to be a very pleasant and hardworking individual here in Region Six intentionally ignored the former HM’s requests. She has under her a few officers who are employed to regularly check and supervise the umpteen numbers of nursery, primary and secondary schools from Mara on the East Bank of Berbice to Orealla on the Corentyne River and believe me, which is hard work to do.

The Ministry of Education last year established the larger body called MERD (some teachers call it MURDER). That is the inspectorate body that does team visits to various schools across Guyana at various unexpected times of the year. Maybe that same team can spend a day at the mentioned school to iron out certain issues. But even before it can reach that higher level, I would suggest that parents get involved and make that school a better place. The writer criticised what was going on at the named school but fell short of making any recommendations as to how the situations there can be remedied.

Maybe the HM at that school should motivate those teachers more to get the tasks performed and performed well.

So while we are concerned, and that is good, and find faults and criticise, let us examine possible recommendations that might work to improve the situations in our public schools. They are not perfect. The system is not perfect. That is why it is not only the teachers’ jobs to do all that they do in these schools. The parents must play integral roles in shaping the life of their children as it relates to them attending schools. Parents can indeed make the difference. Also teachers need motivation from their superiors from time to time. Teachers need to hear: ‘Well done!’ and ‘Keep it up!’ sometimes so that they can be more encouraged to performing better in their workplaces.

There is also a teacher-shortage at the school where I teach. I sometimes duplicate myself by being in the classroom that has no teacher and give them some work to do relating to the subject that the missing teacher should be teaching them. The Teaching Service Commission (TSC) is not ignorant of the fact that many public schools in Guyana are short in teachers. In many schools we have what is called: Teacher X and Teacher Y, denoting the missing units within that staff. We know that in the long run it is the child who will suffer.

So let us not concentrate on casting blame on each other and those in authority. Our genuine concern should be the children and their interests should be at heart. The teachers at that school need to be motivated to perform better. In effect the children will also be motivated to perform better. The parents need to step in too and do their part. And I am sure, too, that the Department of Education in Region Six will do its part as well.
LEON J. SUSERAN