Education for a Green Economy
David Singh, Vice President,
Conservation International
January 31, 2018
I would like to thank the University of Guyana for
the opportunity to speak, and to acknowledge the presentations of the previous speakers
who have thoughtfully addressed education reform in the context of Guyana’s socio-economic
development; and to add that a truly sustainable future for Guyana requires
equal attention to the three dimensions of economic, social and environmental
wellbeing.
In speaking of education and our future, I would
like to emphasise that in a most fundamental way we are focused on human
capital, which is proven to be the basis for any sustainable economy. It also presupposes
that we have a common view on what are the current challenges and opportunities,
and perhaps more importantly, that we have a common understanding of the future
we want.
I would like to associate my remarks closely with
those of Mr Chris Fernandes. He has distilled out some clear steps to address
the big challenges in our education system.
As we think of the future we want, there are two distinct
possibilities.
Our current economy has always been commodity driven,
always exposed to external forces. Our brain drain has been unchecked and the
rate of out-migration of our most qualified has outstripped every other country
on the planet. But on the flipside, our natural capital – our
ecosystems, especially when measured against the size of the population, is
among the highest, most intact, and most valuable in the world. And yes, there
is the promise of oil revenues from 2020, just two years from now.
Our choice of future will be determined today. Do
we continue blithely along and accept a future in which we depend on commodities
such as oil, over which we have little control – an economy characterized by the
so-called resource curse? Or do we create a future by building a solid human
capital foundation, addressing our infrastructural needs and social inequities,
while maintaining our truly world class ecosystems?
Exactly two weeks ago and in this very room, one of
the world’s leading green economy specialists Pavan Sukhdev described an
economy that “results in improved human well-being and social equity, whilst
significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.” That my
friends, describes a green economy and one that we all would want. It is a
necessary choice to secure a future for humanity.
This green economy path is the right turn at the
crossroad where we now find ourselves. From my perspective working for an
organization that helps people care for nature, a green economy future for
Guyana is only possible through an obsessive focus to turn our human capital
from the deficit where it has been for decades, into a net positive. From the
skills we need, through to a fundamental shift in human behaviour, all will be
required to achieve a green economy.
But this requires education reform. Not education
reform in small fontsize, but big and bold and with obsession. We are in a
state of emergency.
In 2015, the Registrar of CXC Dr Didacus Jules called
for a paradigm shift in education, where, “Content will give way to competence;
analytical skills will supersede memorization; and interdisciplinarity will
reinforce key competencies.” He stated that our education systems in the
Caribbean are no longer working, and we simply cannot continue to tinker with
the system.
That was 2015, and we have continued to tinker. Our
current education system, has failed to help Guyana to deliver the human
capital that we require – one may argue that it trains people for the market
abroad; it alienates us from our land and resources, our natural patrimony. A
big part of the issue relates I believe to the metrics we use to measure
performance. We say that we cannot manage what we do not measure, but often we
only manage what we measure. And so, we manage through simple indicators such
as percentage passes; number of schools built; number of teachers graduated;
number of CXC subjects our children write. The inventory list in the supply
chain of human capital improvement delivery is long.
But what if we measure against impact? I would like
to propose three benchmarks that ought to form the foundational goals of a
reformed education programme.
Firstly, we must see a reduction and ultimately a
reversal in the net out-migration of tertiary trained graduates and school
leavers. We cannot begin to think of building a critical mass to move our
development forward without training Guyanese for Guyana.
Secondly, and related to this, we must increase the
relevance of education for our regions and communities. We are increasingly
South American even as we honour our Caribbean history. We cannot hope to build
pride in our people all around Guyana if the education and training they
receive alienates them from their family’s culture and community’s way of life.
And thirdly, we must reduce the amount of
retraining that employers must undertake before new employees can become
productive. This affects the balance sheets of our private sector and speaks to
the relevance and effectiveness of our educational system to the needs of our society.
Colleagues, Guyana can be a world class destination
of excellence in a green economy. But we cannot and will not achieve this
without an obsessive focus on education reform today, now, and long before 2020.
A dream? Perhaps, unless we have the guts and the
spirit to take a non-partisan state of emergency approach to the issue; where we
pitch our minds to foundational goals and real impact. For most Guyanese, your
lifetimes are ahead of you; for some, your lifetimes have already been etched
in the sands of time; and for some, this is our lifetime.
We have a chance that will not come again for the
foreseeable future by which we can do something. Something that can take us out
of the barren barrel called “potential” and into a reality and a future that we
all want and deserve.
Guyana’s
world class natural capital found in its intact ecosystems and oil wealth is
the basis for a world-class green economy, provided that there is the human and
social capital to make this happen. This ambition is achievable: Guyana’s
economy is small and can be readily influenced; its population is small and
highly trainable; and the opportunity costs for this economic transformation
are low given the nascence of our private sector and the intactness of its
ecosystems.
Let
us act now.
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