For over four years, your Eyewitness has been waiting for the revolution in our much-maligned (and rightfully so!) Police Force! The coalition government had announced they’d be abandoning the entry qualification in place from God-knows – that GPF recruits must just have a “sound” Primary School education!! As usual, they did nothing about the “thought” but the new PPP govt obviously thought it was a good idea and last year the Police Brass suggested that 3 CSECs – or needed skillsets was gonna be required. So how much better was that gonna be than a “sound” Primary School Education??
And what was a “sound” Primary School Education, anyway? Is it the cut-off mark from the NGSA to enter Queens College? Your Eyewitness doesn’t think so! But if a student got a decent NGSA mark, wouldn’t he/she enter a Secondary School – even the “B” ones? Guyanese always knew Policemen weren’t the brightest bulbs in the room – any room!! But we can now understand why that old joke about policemen survived for so long. You know…the Policeman nabs the miscreant in the act on Vlissengen St but hauls him over to Church to charge him – since there was no way in Hell (or Earth!) he could spell “Vlissengen”!!
But seriously folks, your Eyewitness hopes the new entry requirements didn’t blow away in the wind. So, he wonders whether the 104 new Police Recruits who were inducted into the GPF last month do have their 3 CSECs! So in their eight months of “rigorous training, challenges, and studies” did the newbies do better than older cohorts who only had a “sound Primary School education”??
If this were so then there’s gonna be a Revolution all right!! We’ll get Policemen (and women) who’ll actually be able to have discussions with civilians they nab for – one suspected infraction or another – without resorting to profanities! Up to now, the poor cops without a CSEC English pass probably didn’t have the vocabulary to express themselves – and in frustration ejaculated a few scatological exclamations! Did you ever think the reason traffic police drag you to the station for just crossing an unbroken yellow line might be because they just can’t fill out the traffic ticket violation?
Now, before you think this CSEC suggestion was unrealistic…let’s appreciate the PPP’s push for raising the educational level for all Guyanese. Those 20,000 scholarship graduates from the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) will soon be looking for jobs. And why not the Police Force – but the pay would have to be competitive, wouldn’t it?? In New York prospects need at least 60 college credits to apply.
Your Eyewitness is really excited by this development. He’s obviously had too many unfortunate interactions with (uneducated) Police!
…with Bajans
Well, how times have changed!! Bajans are actually being polite to Guyanese – which isn’t a curse word to them any longer. At least not in front of our faces!! And this just shows you it’s money that makes the world go round! Forget all those fine-sounding platitudes about us all passing through the same sugar plantations and slavery making us into “one people”. Not so…as all of us who were subjected to the “Guyanese Bench” at Grantley Adams Airport know to our cost!
Anyhow, now that our oil revenues is flowing, it’s clear that the center of gravity of the new Caribbean’s gonna be Guyana and Surinam and we should collaborate. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. For sure, we’ll need all sorts of expertise to develop our new economies – and if they can be sourced from our CariCom neighbors – why not?
Trinidad and Barbados along with Guyana and Suriname can now form a SouthCarib Hub. There’s strength in numbers, no?
…in PNC
Your Eyewitness’ has been pointing out that something ain’t right with the PNC leadership situation. But their next Biennial Congress is scheduled for this coming December, right??
And being the “most democratic political party”, they’ll be holding leadership elections, innit??
