It is criminal not to have students pursuing a full degree in history at the University of Guyana--D

Guyanna Chronicle

THE University of Guyana has been in the news a lot over the last few years. Industrial strikes by faculty and staff; demonstrations by students; and public quarrels between the Vice-Chancellors and their charges have been the most publicised ones. There is a lot that is wrong about UG. And what is wrong about the university is a reflection of what is wrong about Guyana. The people who run UG are, for the most part, Guyanese. The lecturers and students are mostly Guyanese. Dissecting the problems at the university would take several columns. Many commentators, politicians and education specialists have articulated what they see as the root causes of the problem. Here are my two cents. I am arguing that UG’s problems are not native to that institution; it is part of the problem with education in Guyana. Further, I am contending that Guyana’s adversarial politics, replete with its bad-mindedness, has been the other major culprit. The combination of an overall poor education system and process, coupled with nasty Party politics, has been the brew that has poisoned UG. The strangulation and politicisation of the university by the previous administration is unpardonable. The packing of the University Council with partisan officers was hardly veiled. In addition, the naming of hardcore PPP members as Pro-Chancellors gave the image of a Party school rather than a serious institution of learning and training. This control of the levers of power enabled the Ruling Party to carry out its vendetta against those faculty and staff it deemed hostile to it. In the end, the university was reduced to a sad place where moulding minds to aid in national development is not a priority. It is near impossible to discharge a quality education in such an environment. All the other academic woes one hears about are inevetable in such circumstances. The university has become the last link in an educational disaster that begins at the lower end of the education spectrum. Now, we have learned that there are no students enrolled in the Bachelor’s degree programme at the University. Hence, the programme was suspended. A dean at the university gave a convoluted explanation of the problem to the Guyana Chronicle. What he did not say is the truth, which has been verified by those who work there: Over the last few years, enrollment of majors in history has declined to almost zero. This sad state of affairs is not a bad reflection of those who teach in the History Department. Rather, it is an indictment of those who run the university. But having said that, it is a reflection of a ahistorical culture that has developed in the larger society. Every day you hear responsible people, some in high places, repeating the nonsense that we must not look back, and let the past be the past. When our children and young people hear that kind of thing, they obviously develop a lack of appreciation for history as a discipline of social enquiry. Why are we then surprised, if we are at all, that there are no history majors at UG? You reap what you sow; what may be good for political consumption and feel-good chat is bad for the intellectual nourishment. Suffice to say that it is criminal for a university in Guyana not to have students pursuing a major in history in a full degree programme. As a post-plantation society shaped by the some of the profound global developments of the last six centuries, the teaching and learning of history as part of the education and socialisation processes should be premium. We cannot continue like this.

Dr. David Hinds, a political activist and commentator, is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Caribbean and African Diaspora Studies at Arizona State University. More of his writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com. Send comments to dhinds6106@aol.com