Has the groundwork been prepared?
Editorial
On Thursday, July 22, the National Assembly passed the Young Persons Employment (Amendment) Act, raising the age limit for the employment of young people from 14 years to 15 years. Minister of Labour Henry Jeffrey informed the sitting that related legislation providing for children to remain in school until the age of 15 would also soon be placed before Parliament. In normal circumstances no one could possibly voice any objection to the raising of the school leaving age; it is hardly in dispute that the more education the up and coming generation gets the better for it and the nation as a whole. However, whether adequate preparations for this move have been made is not a matter which the Ministry of Education has yet clarified. Statistics and other information on which to base an unambiguous judgement have still to be made public, such as the average size and geographical distribution of the age cohort involved, which category of school is likely to be most affected, what kind of facilities are available and how many more teachers with what qualifications will be required. The last Digest of Educational Statistics in the public domain refers to the school year 1996/97, and while the figures will not apply exactly, some extrapolations can be made. The number of secondary school teachers recorded as being in the system as of September 1996 was 3,009. This figure had fallen to 2,979 by July 1997, new recruits to the profession notwithstanding. There is no reason to suppose that the totals are still not in decline, particularly where graduate and/or trained teachers are concerned. Of course, it could be argued that as things stand class sizes in Guyana are relatively modest, and that the capacity exists to absorb more students. The type of school under the greatest pressure in 1996/7 - and presumably that still applies - was the General Secondary, with 683 classes out of a total of 937 having 31 pupils or more. (It might also be noted that the Georgetown schools in this category had larger average classes than most of the Regions.) Community High Schools too were comparatively overcrowded, with 292 classes out of a total of 435 exceeding 30 students. However, the classes in the Primary Tops tended to be small, with only 134 out of an aggregate of 1,054 passing the 30 mark. One must assume that the bulk of those students who would normally have left school at age fourteen would in fact come from the Primary Tops or Community High Schools, rather than the more populous General Secondary Schools. There are other statistics which possibly could have bearing on the issue. While the average attendance rates for the General Secondary Schools were fairly good - 80 per cent for males and 82 per cent for females, those for the Primary Tops were not. In the year in question they were 54 per cent for boys and 58 per cent for girls, while for the Community High Schools they were 63 per cent and 67 per cent respectively. If the Primary Tops are not managing to secure good attendance rates with the 11-14 year olds, are they really going to do any better when the 15 year olds are added to their registers? Then there is the matter of drop-outs (as opposed to withdrawals), the rate of which was 19 per cent for both boys and girls in the Primary Tops in the year under review. This is a period of economic hardship, and the temptation will be for parents to take their teenagers out of school, no matter what the law says, and send them to work to augment the family income. They would really have to be persuaded that the extra year in school would be an investment in the child's future, and by extension his or her family, before they would make any special sacrifices. Considering too that the truancy laws haven't been systematically enforced for years, parents will hardly be troubled by any penalties specified in some new Act of Parliament. What we also haven't heard about yet is what special programme the Ministry has devised for the proposed new additions to the school register which will really equip them for the harsh realities of the outside world. Furthermore, we also haven't heard about who will teach it. While there may be room in the classrooms of most Primary Tops and quite a few Community Highs, it is almost certain that the teachers will be the same. There is nothing less conducive to educational advancement than an inexperienced, poorly qualified teacher facing a classroom full of teenagers with no motivation to learn. Instead of turning out functionally illiterate fourteen-year-olds, the possibility exists that we will be graduating functionally illiterate fifteen-year-olds. Of course we have to raise the school leaving age sooner or later, but has the groundwork for it at this stage been properly prepared?
|