Dear Editor,
It appears that in oil-rich Guyana, we have discovered something even more remarkable than offshore petroleum—we have apparently discovered summer.
Judging by the flood of government (and non-government) advertisements for “Summer Camps,” one could be forgiven for believing Guyana has quietly migrated from the tropics to the temperate zone. Perhaps no one informed our schoolchildren that they no longer live just north of the Equator, where the climate is characterised by wet and dry seasons, not spring, summer, autumn and winter.
This may seem like harmless marketing, but it reflects something far more troubling: our growing comfort with replacing knowledge with imitation. We have reached the point where foreign terminology is adopted without the slightest regard for our geography, culture or educational responsibility.
For generations, Guyanese children were taught that ours is a tropical country. Geography classes explained why we experience rainfall patterns rather than seasonal temperature changes. Yet today, the very institutions charged with educating the next generation casually promote “summer camps” as though facts no longer matter.
Words shape understanding. When official agencies repeatedly use terminology that contradicts basic geography, they normalise misinformation. The message to young people is subtle but dangerous: precision is unimportant, and appearances matter more than truth.
It is ironic that while billions are being invested in education, we are simultaneously eroding the fundamentals of learning. If we cannot correctly describe our own climate, what confidence should anyone have in the quality of the education we claim to be delivering?
This is symptomatic of a broader national habit—borrowing labels from North America and Europe because they sound fashionable, while disregarding our own reality. We copy expressions without considering whether they make sense in Guyana. It is intellectual dependency masquerading as modernity.
A country that cannot confidently describe itself risks producing citizens disconnected from their own environment. Geography is not merely about maps; it is about understanding where we live, how our climate works, how our agriculture depends on seasonal rainfall, and why our identity differs from countries thousands of miles away.
Perhaps it is time to retire the imported fiction of “summer camps” and call them what they are: school vacation camps, holiday programmes, or simply August camps. There is nothing provincial about using language that accurately reflects our circumstances. On the contrary, it demonstrates intellectual honesty.
If we aspire to become a first-class nation, we must first stop teaching ourselves third-rate habits. Development is not measured solely by skyscrapers, highways or oil revenues. It is also measured by whether a nation values truth over trend, knowledge over imitation, and education over empty branding.
Guyana deserves better than a manufactured summer.
Yours truly,
Tony Jones
