Need for patriotic education

Dear Editor,
Over the period of the PPP/C Government, from 1992 to 2015 and 2020 to now, education has made a great leap forward. This is undeniable.
Before 1992 we were at the bottom of the ladder in passes at CXC and CAPE, compared to the rest of the region. That has changed, and we are now producing the region’s top students.
Now we are moving at another level. Free education on an expanded curriculum and assistance for students to write exams. Multiple assistances are given to our students at all levels to make it easy for them to study. Added to that is the fact that the infrastructure in education has been and is being constantly modernised. All of these measures will produce more highly skilled people for our country, and I dare say for abroad as some continue to migrate.
While we are producing sound technical people, we are not providing the education that would produce patriots.
Lacking from the curriculum in our education system, at all levels, is the teaching of our own history. That is why I hear from many older Guyanese the complaint that our young people have never heard of many Guyanese whose contributions to this country’s progress have been monumental.
If a people do not know their own history, then they can be easily manipulated and misled. They will feel no strong affinity to the nation, and many, as we see even now, judging from the letter columns, are taking very reactionary, even foreign positions as it relates to our country and the region. Some through ignorance and others deliberately misrepresent our history.
I would therefore strongly advocate that history be taught at every level of our education system as a compulsory subject. If CXC does not recognise it, then we should make it a Guyanese exam in which all students must write.
Creating a conscious people, allowing them to know the journey our people travelled, will give them strong roots. It is as important, if not more important, than just moulding technical competence. We need our people to stand up for what is right and just, to be principled and to appreciate the struggles of those who came before us.
This character they would acquire if they had a sound knowledge of our history.

Yours sincerely,
Donald Ramotar
Former President