Towards a civic education programme for national transformation

Dear Editor,
The PPP/C Government has made massive strides in initiating the physical transformation of Guyana. In its next term, it faces a tougher task: transforming people’s values, attitudes and behaviours in relation to themselves and their social and physical environment.
As is clear from its manifesto, the PPP/C recognises the need for a civic education programme to effect these changes. But what constitutes an effective civic education programme? What are its ingredients, and how are they related to the broader physical, economic and cultural landscape?
Civic education is more than a classroom subject; it is the way a people learn to imagine their lives, their opportunities, and their relations to others; that is, their belonging to a nation. We often think of civic in terms of formal lessons, but a civic consciousness and culture is primarily learnt through daily life experiences, through the experiences that allow people to dream, to plan, and to connect their personal aspirations to the wider social and physical environment in which they live.
The Government has already recognised this through recent education initiatives led by the Ministry of Education, which place greater emphasis on skills, creativity, and social learning. But civic education cannot remain confined to schools. It must also be learnt through lived experiences supported by national initiatives, whether in tourism policy under the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, in cultural programmes, or in state media through the Department of Public Information, that give people opportunities to imagine, to explore, to share, and to enjoy their country.
Tourism is especially important here. Ironically, it is often when international visitors arrive that locals themselves begin to see the value of their own landscapes, cultural practices and spaces, and opportunities for enjoyment. This should not be dismissed; it can be harnessed. When international tourism highlights the beauty of our rivers, mountains, and towns, it provides an opening for domestic tourism to flourish and for citizens to develop a deeper sense of pride.
But this requires a broader vision of tourism. For too long, policy has treated tourism as almost synonymous with ecotourism. Ecotourism is valuable, but it cannot stand alone. Citizens also need lifestyle tourism, spaces where families and friends can travel for a weekend and take and share photographic stories celebrating life and enjoying places and people in their own country. This calls for investments in integrated resorts along rivers, mountain retreats, open-air cafés, and leisure spaces designed not only for international visitors but for Guyanese families as well. These are places where civic pride grows through lived experience, where people learn to see themselves as part of something larger than their household, and where the sense of Guyana is enjoyed and becomes tangible.
When combined with formal civics education from primary school upward and with state media that highlights local spaces, events, and opportunities, these lifestyle experiences become powerful tools of civic formation. They help citizens expand their thinking from self and family to community and nation.
Civic culture is not built by instruction alone. It is built when education, tourism, media, and culture work together to give people both knowledge and opportunities to live that knowledge. In this way, Guyana’s policies, through the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce; the Ministry of Education; and the Department of Public Information, can come together to strengthen not just the economy but also the very spirit of citizenship.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Walter H Persaud