We have always subscribed to the fact that Georgetown alone is not Guyana, and once again substance has been given to this fact when it was announced that this year’s top student at the National Grade Six Assessment Examination hails from the Essequibo Coast in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam) and attended the C. V Nunes Primary School.

We note that in the past years, several schools outside Georgetown have produced the top student or have been among those schools that produced the top ten students, and this serves to spell good for rural education and breaks from the archaic and pre-conceived tradition that only schools in Georgetown could have produced the top students.

The C. V Nunes Primary School on the Essequibo Coast has every right to be rejoicing at achieving the feat of producing the top student this year, and Yogeeta Persaud, this year’s top student, has brought pride to the late Cedric Vernon Nunes, Education Minister under the PPP government of 1961 to 1964.

It will be recalled that it was during Mr. Nunes’ time as Education Minster that our country saw the introduction of the Rural Education Development and Expansion Programme. This programme saw the construction of modern schools throughout the country. Over the years these schools which are still standing today have produced some of the country’s most brilliant sons and daughters.

Our current President, His Excellency Bharrat Jagdeo is a product of that programme which has also molded the minds of so many of our local politicians.

Sad to say, however, that when the PPP government demitted office following the 1964 elections, the twenty-eight years of PNC rule that followed were nothing but a tale of woes for the Guyanese people and the rich inheritance of schools throughout the country were allowed to run down and fall apart just like that party’s policies on education. In fact it was a matter of survival for scores of school children who were forced to drop out of school because of the harsh economic times under successive PNC governments.

We are happy to note now, that this is all history, and the return to office of the PPP/C in 1992 has brought with it rejuvenation of the education and other sectors, and every year since its first budget after the 1992 elections, more and more money has been allocated for the very vital education sector.

This new injection in the education sector saw the construction of massive school structures which today permeates our landscape.

We recall that in this year’s national budget, the government has allocated $19 billion to the education sector. Over $2 billion of this massive sum has been budgeted for construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of schools and buildings in the education sector.

We recognise that one of the hallmarks of this government’s education policy is to provide the various schools with fully trained teachers which will lead to increasing the child’s ability to learn. In this regard, over $728 million are to be spent on teacher training to upgrade capabilities and curriculum modules.

In announcing the results yesterday at a press conference, Education Minister Shaik Baksh said that some 17,630 students countrywide wrote the examination and they were initially graded for five percent in Grade Two and ten percent in Grade Four, The final examination in Grade Six, he explained, accounted for the remaining 85 percent of the examination, and the total of these assessments in English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies were combined to give the overall grade.

We take this opportunity to congratulate all thirteen of the top ten students and all the others who have been scored enough to give them entry to the country’s top schools.

We hope they will continue to work hard in their quest to achieve their life-time dreams. We would like to leave all those students who have made it, with this quotation by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow:

“The heights by great men reached and kept,

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.