‘THE SYSTEM IS FAILING!’
Kaieteur News – Back in the day when you passed your school leaving exams, you could rely on becoming a good clerk with one of the small companies they had around … that is, if you knew someone who inside.
Back in the day, it didn’t matter if you passed or you missed school leaving, you hold your tail unless you know someone who was either someone or ‘ n know someone who could get you a good job.
They had some fellows who used to get things easy. They were not rich but they came from the right family, the kind of family that knew people who could open doors, narrow as they were.
Some of these same fellows became big ones but not on merit because when they saw bright boys who used to “cut my tail at school,” they would turn away because they knew the bright boys deserves the job. The fellows knew that they deserved to be scrubbed like so many others.
But so is life eh! Some men become real big because they were born into the right connections. Some poor men study hard and find that, whatever doors are opened for them, they must first push with their knees.
Many poor people used this as an excuse. They say the system discriminates against them. They claim they failed to leave school because the system did not want them to go into clerical work.
But in terms of exams, the system is fair. They failed. But they are ashamed to admit it. As good as they were, they were not good enough.
They failed and because they didn’t have the right connections, they had to start from scratch. Some of them finish from scratch. After a while, they forget their dreams. They forget that they have always wanted to be a clerk at Bookers or the civil service.
They decided to settle wherever they were, hoping the boss man remembers them at Christmas and when they get older the company will pay them a pension that will be neat for them over their remaining days.
They did not cater for something called inflation and nationalization. When the nationalization thing started, the boss man decided it was time to start sending his money out.
They kept the company going, hoping the nationalization thing would pass, but they kept their money out. They also sent their children abroad and in the meantime, the poor man started to find out that things were getting harder and harder.
Instead of waiting for a pension, the poor fellow tried to find out if he can live to 90 because of the way inflation will go, he is likely to have to work all his life because he can’t even afford to pay for the arch.
The poor man sitting down pinning away hoping that business will pick up so that the boss man doesn’t have to send him home. But things didn’t go up. Things are starting to fall… and fast too.
Meanwhile, the man has a puzzle one foot in and one foot out. He lives in two countries, six months outside and six months inside.
At least when he comes back, he brings a sardine to a tin, which the poor man had to hide to eat.
When he sat for all those hours doing nothing waiting for things to improve he wondered about the school leaving certificate and why he didn’t pass.
Until then, he kept saying they cheated him, that he ‘made the grade’ and that if they didn’t steal him and all the other boys, he would have a ‘big job’ like them middle class boys and he used to play all day and finished in good jobs and driving Holden motor cars.
Some of his friends encourage him to try pork chop. They say ‘he has good money’. When he sees them as boys, they always have money and spend it also on liquor and women.
But it wasn’t that kind of life for him. He wanted to work in the job. He settled for the storage bond but maybe one day his children will not have to do as he did.
The only thing is that the exams are now changing. He no longer leaves school. It has another name, and some of these kids write topics 14 and 15. They don’t need big jobs that they can get with a certificate but they will get it.
Not his children. This time it’s not the cheating exam … ‘the cheating system!’ The more you try, the harder it will get. It is good for him to hold on to his two hundred job. It’s still better than nothing, and that’s what he got most of his life!
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)