For several days, the media reported on the issue about the planned 40% increase in fees at Mae’s, one of the most prominent private schools in Georgetown. The administration of the school claimed that costs in general have risen, and they would wish to retain and recruit more able teachers, who would have to be paid more than the present level of salaries.
During the Presidency of LFS Burnham, all private schools were nationalised and brought under the control of the Ministry of Education. This meant that schools owned and conducted by religious organisations such as the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Hindu groups were taken over by the State. During this period of State-control, no private schools were permitted.
The State built several new school buildings, and repaired and renovated many primary schools. New educational policies were experimented with, and many older teachers were dispensed with. But during this period of full State control, the quality of education deteriorated, and parents could see only further and further deterioration into the future. There were persistent and bitter complaints from the public, but the Ministry remained unmoved.
In this milieu of poor education, at the beginning of every school year, parents desperately tried to have their children admitted to the former private schools; since it was felt, with some justification, that those schools had retained some of the traditions of the past. The anxieties and agony which parents suffered at the beginning of the school year was a scenario which no one would like to again experience. For example, the State had established the “Common Entrance” examination, which placed pupils in secondary schools dependent upon the number of their marks. This system openly admitted that there were some schools which were better than others.
When Desmond Hoyte succeeded LFS Burnham to the Presidency, the Education Policy underwent some changes, and among the most important was that private schools were again permitted to be established. Many nursery schools and a number of secondary schools were established, and Mae’s was one such. These new private schools differed in quality among themselves, and were all fee-paying.
Queen’s College, President’s College and Bishops’ High School were still regarded as the best schools in the country, but some of the newly established private schools came to be bracketed with them, among which was Mae’s.
The better of the new private secondary schools, such as Marian Academy, Mae’s and School of Nations, tended to have better results than the purely Government-controlled schools, but their fee structure could be afforded only by the affluent, or those poorer parents who were prepared to make a great sacrifice to send their children to these schools. These private secondary schools were all informed by a strong commercial motivation.
Probably the only high-grade secondary school which is not driven by a profit motive, and whose approach to education is altruistic, is the Saraswati Vidya Niketan School (SVN) at Cornelia Ida. This school was founded and administered by Swami Aksharananda, and initially catered for those pupils whose marks were so low at the Common Entrance Examination that they could not have been admitted to the Government secondary schools. The parents of such children came from among the poorer sections of society.
The Mae’s fee issue has brought to the fore the many problems and difficulties which the Ministry of Education and the Government must immediately confront and begin to solve. Such problems would include raising of the standards of both Government primary and secondary schools, so that there would be no need for parents to bear the heavy financial burdens of sending their children to private secondary schools. This present system is unwittingly harbouring elitism in education, and is emphasising class differences.
The system as is has led to the growth of a vicious private-lesson industry wherein parents are heavily burdened financially. The parents who cannot afford private lessons find their children doing poorly, not because of any innate lack of ability of the child, but because of inadequate teaching. Solving the problem of private lessons by Government is not insuperable; Swami Aksharananda’s SVN does not permit private lessons, and yet its pupils are high flyers in their examinations.
Extra-curricular activities have almost disappeared from most schools. There are no games, or clubs or cadet corps, and the children’s development has become deficient. The Ministry of Education could constructively resuscitate the model of the old Queen’s College before the socialist experiment. In the old Queen’s, all the boys went out to the playing field at 3.00 p.m., or were in the Cadet Corps. They also participated in clubs such as photography, debating, and so on.
Would the Government and the Ministry of Education take up the challenge of reforming the Education System?
