A new essay by Dr. Terrence Blackman argues that Guyana’s long-standing economic and institutional challenges—now sharply amplified by unprecedented oil wealth—cannot be understood without confronting a central question: why so many of its most educated citizens left, and why many have not returned.
Blackman—Professor and Chair of Mathematics at Medgar Evers College, City University of New York, and Founder and Publisher of the Guyana Business Journal—writes at the intersection of mathematics, education policy, and Caribbean development. A former Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a visitor to the Institute for Advanced Study, his analysis situates Guyana’s trajectory within a broader institutional framework.
Writing in the Guyana Business Journal (April 19, 2026), Blackman points to the diaspora itself as evidence of structural failure. Responses to his earlier essay came overwhelmingly from Guyanese abroad—“from New York and Toronto and London and Atlanta and Accra and Paramaribo”—underscoring the scale of outward migration.
“That fact — the geography of the response — is itself the essay,” he writes.
Blackman situates the beginning of the exodus of skilled Guyanese largely in the 1970s and 1980s, during the period of state-led development under Forbes Burnham. This era was defined by ambitious efforts at cooperative socialism, nationalisation of key industries, and a push for economic self-sufficiency. However, it also unfolded within a highly charged environment shaped by Cold War pressures, deepening ethnic political polarisation, and growing constraints on political and economic freedoms.
Within this context, Blackman argues, many professionals came to view Guyana as institutionally uncertain—not necessarily unsafe in a physical sense, but unpredictable in how opportunity, advancement, and reward were determined. “When the state cannot reliably guarantee that competence will be rewarded… the people with the most options will exercise them,” he writes, describing a dynamic in which outward migration became a rational response to weakening institutional confidence.
To illustrate the long-term consequences of these conditions, Blackman contrasts Guyana with Barbados. Both countries entered independence in 1966 with comparable economic structures and human development levels. Over subsequent decades, Barbados advanced steadily while Guyana declined. The divergence, he contends, reflects differences in institutional development—particularly the preservation of meritocratic governance, judicial independence, political and policy stability in Barbados.
Importantly, Blackman does not dismiss the ambition of the Burnham era. He acknowledges that policies such as free education, food self-sufficiency, and technological self-reliance were, in many respects, forward-looking. However, he opinied that “vision and institution are different things — and it is the second that determines outcomes.”
He further argues that these institutional weaknesses proved durable, persisting beyond the return to office of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in 1992 under a different electoral paradigm, noting: “Transitions transfer power. They do not automatically transfer institutional culture.”
The scale of the outcome is evident in the data: between 1965 and 2000, Guyana lost an estimated 89 percent of its tertiary-educated population to emigration—among the highest rates globally.
Blackman’s observation points to a persistent continuity of governance challenges across successive administrations, shaped not only by inherited institutional weaknesses but also by shifting internal political dynamics, including enduring ethnic polarisation and competition for state power.
Despite the post–Cold War “New World Order” emphasis on justice, equity, and equality—and Guyana’s transition from a state-controlled to a market-driven economy—meaningful institutional transformation has remained limited, at times appearing to move in reverse. These overlapping realities underscore the need for further study to more precisely identify the structural constraints shaping Guyana’s development trajectory.
That history now collides with a dramatically altered present. Since the start of oil production in 2019, Guyana has become one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, with GDP expanding from roughly US$3.6 billion to over US$15 billion. Oil production has surged to hundreds of thousands of barrels per day, generating billions in annual government revenue and sustaining double-digit growth.
Blackman argues that this contrast—extraordinary national wealth alongside unresolved institutional fragility—defines the central challenge of the current moment.
“Building schools without changing what happens inside them produces beautiful monuments to a missed opportunity,” he cautions.
At its core, the question is whether Guyana can now build the meritocratic institutions needed to retain and attract talent. “Is there the will to do what needs to be done?” he asks, echoing engineer Clarence Trotz.
Whether this moment becomes transformation or another squandered opportunity will depend on choices Guyana can no longer afford to delay.
Read more of this analysis in the Guyana Business Journal.
