It’s that time of the year again. We got our initial national “rush” when the NGSA marks came out, and now we move up the rankings into CSEC and CAPE. We haven’t gotten to the point of celebrating the rankings from the University of Guyana graduations, but that’s another story, innit!? It might be more about the university that the students, since one would think it’s the same cohort of high school students moving up the ladder.
Do most folks know that the majority of lecturers at UG just have a BA or BSc degree? How are they going to inspire their wards to “look beyond the horizon” when THEIR horizons are restricted by their mediocre training? If you haven’t been on a hill, much less a mountaintop, what’s there to see and pass on?
Anyhow, back to the CSEC and CAPE grades. If you look at the pics and headlines in the press, you’d think there’s only a handful of schools doing well in Guyana. Since Queen’s gets the cream of the crop from the NGSA; and, more to the point, the cream of the funding from the Ministry of Ed, the students are EXPECTED TO DO WELL!! It’s those who don’t who feel a sense of shame. What pleased your Eyewitness was that the top spot at CSEC was SHARED by one kid from Queen’s and one from Anna Regina Secondary!! The latter has been amazingly consistent in recent years – along with its companion, the Abram Zuil.
And this brings your Eyewitness to those mind-boggling numbers of subjects the top students passed – which just keeps increasing. Imagine the two toppers nicked TWENTY-THREE GRADE ONES!! And to increase your Eyewitness’s incredulity, he has learnt that the kid from Queen’s actually wrote TWENTY-NINE subjects and additionally copped six Grade Twos!! The ARMS kid wrote 24 subjects and copped 1 Grade 2!! Seriously, your Eyewitness doesn’t want to take away anything from these kids, but every time he hears about these numbers, he must confess, he wonders about the level of difficulty of these exams. But even so, the only thing that could explain writing these numbers of subjects has to be the hope of securing a scholarship.
But what pleased your Eyewitness greatly was that SVN, the private Hindu school on West Coast Demerara, was again in the top bracket. The reason for this is that ARMS also gets the top NGSA kids from the Essequibo Coast – who don’t want to relocate to “town”. But SVN gets mostly the lower cut, who didn’t make the “town schools”. Their performance is consistently absolutely mind boggling!!
In CAPE, it was the same story: Queen’s dominating the headlines, but SVN still sneaking in!!
…the money game
There have been rising concerns about our inflation rate of recent – mostly expressed as “money na do fuh live!!” Our leaders can do worse that look at the experience of the US, that’s been on an inflation roller coaster for decades!! How did they handle matters?? Well, back in 2008 – when their economy tanked and plunged them into a recession, legendary investor Warren Buffet noted, ex-President George W. Bush uttered ‘perhaps the most consequential words on modern economics’: “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down!”
So, lo and behold, the Fed launched “quantitative easing” – a series of actions that include the purchasing of securities to inject money into the financial system. This lowered borrowing costs and increased the money supply – but inflation also increased!! So, since June 2022, to tame inflation, the Fed have reversed gears and launched “quantitative tightening” – sucking up money from the economy!!
Our Bank of Guyana plays the role of the Fed here. Have they been “tightening” our money supply??
…teachers’ role
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand made hopefully what isn’t a throwaway comment, after observing the overall performance of students at CSEC Math and English. She said that teachers’ remuneration ought to be tied to performance.
Your Eyewitness concurs enthusiastically!!
