The NGSA results: more than school placements

The release of the 2026 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) results has rightly been greeted with celebration. Twenty students sharing the top position and the country’s strongest overall performance on record are achievements worthy of recognition. They reflect the efforts of students, parents, teachers and the Ministry of Education, as well as years of sustained investment in schools, teacher training and educational resources.
But the real significance of these results extends far beyond which child earned a place at Queen’s College or the Bishops’ High School. They are a glimpse into whether Guyana is preparing itself to survive the day when oil is no longer enough. Oil has transformed Guyana with astonishing speed. Within just a few years, Government revenues have multiplied, public infrastructure is expanding, private investment is booming and economic growth has consistently ranked among the highest in the world. Yet history offers a sobering lesson. Countries do not become permanently prosperous because they discover oil. They become prosperous because they transform temporary resource wealth into permanent human capital.
The NGSA results are one of the earliest indicators of whether that transformation is actually happening. For decades we have suffered from a chronic shortage of skilled workers. Engineers, doctors, scientists, accountants, software developers, technicians and teachers frequently migrated overseas. Many of those who remained often worked in systems constrained by limited resources. Today, our country has something previous generations never enjoyed: the financial means to invest heavily in its people. The question is whether it is doing so effectively.
This year’s improved NGSA performance suggests encouraging progress. Better literacy and numeracy outcomes imply that interventions introduced after the COVID-19 learning losses, expanded teacher training, improved learning materials, school feeding programmes and investments in educational infrastructure are beginning to bear fruit. That matters enormously because an oil economy creates opportunities that extend far beyond petroleum.
Every offshore platform requires engineers. Every new hospital requires doctors and nurses. Every manufacturing plant requires technicians. Every digital Government system requires programmers and cybersecurity specialists. Every modern financial centre requires accountants, economists and lawyers. Every research laboratory requires scientists. The greatest mistake we could make would be assuming that imported expertise can indefinitely substitute for local talent.
Foreign specialists are valuable. They transfer knowledge and fill immediate gaps. But no nation has ever become sustainably developed by outsourcing its intelligence. Eventually the people designing Guyana’s infrastructure, managing its sovereign wealth, operating its industries and conducting its scientific research must increasingly be Guyanese.
That journey begins long before university. It begins in primary schools and continues by strengthening Mathematics and Science instruction, increasing technical and vocational education, expanding research capacity at the University of Guyana, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, investing in artificial intelligence and digital technologies, and creating an education system that rewards creativity rather than rote memorisation.
We must recognise, however, that not every child will become an engineer or physician – and that is perfectly acceptable. A successful oil economy depends just as much on electricians, welders, heavy equipment operators, mechanics, plumbers, surveyors, software technicians, agricultural scientists and skilled artisans. Educational success should therefore be measured not simply by NGSA scores but by whether every student eventually acquires skills that create productive, rewarding careers.
There is another reason these results deserve careful attention. Oil revenues will eventually decline. “Oil doesn’t spoil,” boasted T&T’s Eric Williams – but as his country found out, it does run out. Whether that happens here in 30 years or 50, our petroleum reserves are finite. The education provided to today’s eleven-year-olds, however, will continue generating economic value throughout their working lives. Knowledge appreciates itself. Oil depreciates.
Future historians may well conclude that Guyana’s greatest oil discovery was not in the Stabroek Block. It was in its classrooms. If today’s record NGSA performance signals the emergence of a generation better equipped to innovate, compete and lead, then the country is making the smartest investment possible. Because when the last barrel of oil is eventually pumped, Guyana’s greatest national asset will not be beneath the Atlantic Ocean.
It will be walking into secondary schools this September.