Well, here we are – revelling in one of our quaint annual rituals – squealing as our little (11+) darlings get the NGSA – the National Sixth Grade Assessment – scores!! But more to the point, checking to see WHOSE kids made it to the top four or five Secondary Schools in our dear ole Mudland!! Typically, that’s not more than five hundred of so –with the top 100 going to Queen’s College and the second hundred to Bishops. The names of those two schools signal their colonial origin when the entire country vied to send their little munchkins to mingle – and perchance even mix! – with the scions of the white and coloured crème de la crème!!
The exams used to be called “Common Entrance” – for the commoners, of course, to duke it out mentally for the privilege!! The upper crust didn’t have to write no qualifying exams – THEY, of course, were so much smarter than the natives!!! But eventually, in a “decolonising”, move the Common Entrance was changed to the NGSA. The experts said the one-off Common Entrance put too much pressure on the little ragamuffins at such an early age. So instead, they instituted not one but THREE “ASSESSMENTS” – at Grades 2,4 and 6!!
We were told the assessments weren’t REALLY “exams” – the kids were now ASSESSED from age seven!! So, what’s different!?! The results of the 2nd and 4th Grade “assessments” are supposed to be factored into the NGSA – on the premise that the student’s strengths and weaknesses were monitored over a larger span!! And when they enter High School’s 7th Grade, the teachers would have a good assessment of the raw material they’re being handed to mould into the new Guyana citizen!!
Have you ever heard such a crock? Your Eyewitness would like to know of a SINGLE instance where this utopian kiddie paradise is practiced!! The cynical truth is there’s been ABSOLUTELY no change in whatever pressures the Common Entrance exam had placed on the kids. The present NGSA pretty much still determines the “life chances” of the kids’ future success or failure, what could be new?? Of course, there’s gonna be exceptions, but by and large, the race is gonna be won by the “bright” – as defined by NGSA scores!!
Early on when the NGSA was introduced around 2003, there were promises to do away with the invidious comparisons it inevitably created. The “lower” 14,500 kids who didn’t make the “town schools” with the “top” 500, would have the label all their life of being “failures”!! All of the schools across the country would be given the same facilities, same trained teachers, same funding, etc, so that kids would all be sent to schools in their community.
Whatever happened?
…Elder Green?
Your Eyewitness was shocked out of his wits to see Elder Hamilton “Bilal” Green being relegated to the second row of seats at the just-concluded (??) 22nd Biennial Congress of the PNC!! Gasp!! Maybe he can understand Carl Greenidge getting a front seat, because he was a Minister in the PNC under the Founder Leader Burnham. But Bilal wasn’t only Min of Health and a host of other portfolios – he was PRIME MINISTER!! The lowest blow of all was he had to sit BEHIND one fella from the Worst Possible Alternative – according to Burnham – and also a grasshopper who went over from the PNC to the PPP!!
Oh…what has the world come to?? If it was one thing Burnham was known for was to observe the formalities. There was that time – when he and Cheddi were still together and they walked out of the House.
But Burnham was careful to genuflect to the Speaker as he passed in front of him!!
…to Indians in UK voting?
OK…so Rishi Sunak lost the premiership – as had been universally predicted. But including him, at least another half a dozen Indians won seats in Parliament!! Including the victorious Labour Party.
Gotta cover all bases, no??
