Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to outline a "fancy" concept to keep Queen's at the top of the league. I think you will all agree that Guyana has a number of grave problems and the healing of those problems requires a multi-dimensional understanding and a multi-faceted approach to their solution. Therefore the Queen's I envisage would not reflect or replicate experimental schools in New York or London or Toronto, but one that would be sensitive to its Guyanese melieu and conscious of the international context bearing down on Guyana.

One example: we've always known that Guyana has an intractable natural environment, and for a long time we felt that the only way to deal with it was by way of human domination through technology. We have been learning, however, how fragile that environment is; how necessary a part of our life support system it is, and therefore how solicitous we must be about its care and preservation.

That means environmental education in our schools is a must. And environmental education is inter-disciplinary education, involving geography, physics, biology, economics, political sociology and the creative arts. That would be an effective way for Queen's, and its sister flagship schools, to introduce the interdisciplinary concept and its teaching devices to the other schools in the country.

Likewise, for the creation of even an "approximate" interracial harmony, a multidisciplinary approach to the study of human rights is essential. That, too, involves ethics, politics, sociology, psychology, literature, economics and conflict resolution.

These are just some embryonic thoughts that I leave for you to play with. As old Queen's College boys, we naturally want to see our school live up to its past without living in its past. Therefore, it is our duty to come up with inspired ideas and strategic objectives that will position Queen's at the centre of Guyana’s educational world.

We must prove that it can be done without the almighty privileges that, in the old colonial times, set it apart and made it an almost Olympian deity.

Therefore, it is our duty to come up with inspired ideas and strategic objectives that will position Queen's at the centre of Guyana’s educational world. We must prove that it can be done without the almighty privileges that, in the old colonial times, set it apart and made it an almost Olympian deity.