By: Sase Singh; MSc – Finance, ACCA
The University of Guyana (UG) can do so much more for the nation after being in existence for more than 50 years. The evidence is not yet there to prove that the resources are adequately focused to achieve the desired outcome.
UG, my Alma Mata, was established in 1963 with some 164 students. After 55 years, the student population has not reached 8000 according to the university’s website. That is just pathetic; it should be more like 25,000!
Nations serious about their future (as rich as Singapore and South Korea to the not so rich as Rwanda and Ghana), take serious measures to ensure their high school students in growing numbers are entering university. Over the course of a single generation, these progressive nations have created a situation where degree holders are becoming almost ubiquitous. In the case of South Korea – 70 per cent of the high school students enroll in universities. In the case of Rwanda, over a 10-year period (2007-2017), they doubled the number of students graduating from high school of which the transfer rate of those high school graduates into university increased from 11 per cent to 50 per cent.
What has happened to Guyana? We are still stuck with 12 per cent of our high school students transferring to a university, of which 90 per cent of them leave the country after graduating. Are we producing the right people for the local market?
The model used by Guyana for generations has been to work on the nursery and primary system first, with a plan to get to the secondary and university system later. The challenge with that system is that it sparingly gets to the university level. Why not reverse the model and start with the “at-risk” secondary school students? How can we get these students into the university system and into programmes designed for the local market?
Has anyone ever asked the Private Sector and Government leaders what skill sets they need most and which skill sets they are prepared to pay well? UG has for decades been “mis-training” our people. One only has to look at the composition of enrolled students in each faculty and you get a clear idea that Guyana is on a different planet when it comes to enriching its human capacity to boost its competitiveness. Unless more than half of the university enrollment is in the hard sciences and business entrepreneurship studies, we cannot innovate the future and lead the change needed.
As Guyana prepares for first oil, we need people to help us crunch those numbers and manage the technical issues with the oil majors on our behalf. But UG is not helping enough to prepare the nation for this eventuality. Are we graduating anyone in the master’s programme in environmental sciences? What about the bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Physics? What about geological engineering and civil engineering and all the other facets of engineering; how great are those numbers? What about financial specialists?
What I am reading is shocking. The top schools alone cannot produce enough for the nation; it needs the graduates from Mahaicony Secondary, East La Penitence Secondary and other schools on the fringes in university. What the nation needs is greater academic support for those who are falling through the cracks in the high school system. Programmes that I observe in the United States such as the “Boys to Men Programme”, “Combat2College Programme”, and “The Learning Centres” are excellent models that can easily be replicated in Guyana.
Let us reflect on the “Boys to Men Programme”? In Guyana, the World Bank has discovered what we all knew from a generation ago by stating that “at the secondary level, there is male underachievement” in the system. Yet a generation after that report was written, absolutely nothing has been done to move boys into becoming educated men in a system that is rigged against them.
In the USA, you find this mentoring programme aimed at male high school students who are struggling financially, socially and academically. The entire programme has been particularly successful in Maryland at fostering these youths at risk to graduate high school. The aim is to do what is necessary for these boys to stay in school and then unleash them in a supported environment into the college system. They are mentored and partially financed into a life of greater student activism, access to work and mentored constantly into taking personal responsibilities for themselves. Why can’t UG lead on such an agenda in our public education system in a pilot system in a nearby secondary school?
