Latest update November 26th, 2024 1:00 AM
University education critical part of development – AFC
“A university is but that cradle out of which we can have the jobs that our action plan talks about, the creative skills of a people that would produce more with higher productivity rates”, said Presidential Candidate of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan.
He was presenting his party’s Action Plan on Thursday, at the Education Lecture Theatre, University of Guyana (UG) Campus.
Ramjattan said that the University must produce not only economic and entrepreneurial skills but also produce the well-grounded individual who could understand his neighbour, understand what sometimes creates the phobias that cause the destabilization and sometimes the disaffection between the various ethnicities which are present in Guyana.
The Presidential Candidate stated that universities are there to cultivate the mental skills of students irrespective of the subject matter, to self express, imagine, to creatively develop and to symbolize and maintain in society a respect for intellectual excellence and also to be skeptics about what is transpiring around them, which is what the AFC desires to witness at UG (both in Georgetown and Berbice), since this is essential to creating the quality people Guyana needs.
The AFC’s Action Plan stated that the challenge of rebuilding Guyana can only be met with a skilled and highly educated work force and that the party would emphasize job creation through vocational and business schools which will directly reduce the unemployment rate especially among youth.
Prime Ministerial Candidate, Sheila Holder, told the audience that she is fully aware of how “disenchanted” many people are, of politics, politicians and the political environment that exists in Guyana.
She stated that to some extent while operating in the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) sector, she became frustrated at not being able to advance what was felt as necessary progress among Guyanese, resulting in her becoming politically involved (as a way to achieve those goals).
Holder said that after almost 10 years in the National Assembly she does not believe that she was able to do as much as she would have like to do, had the system been different.
Members of the executive body of the Alliance For Change (AFC) during their launching of the party’s Action Plan and continuation of its 2011 Campaign.
The Prime Ministerial candidate explained that no process or country is stagnant because we live in a world of change. She asked “Is it too much to ask that the system which isn’t working should be changed?”
Holder added that it is the people who have given the powers that be, the stamp of approval, to ignore the desires for betterment.
Ms Holder explained that her party believes that the tax system is not as fair and reasonable as it should be and in the AFC’s agenda policy. In order to empower and enrich families to take better care of their dependents, there is need to re-form the tax system and particularly to introduce tax allowances for dependents.
If there is a family of 10, they should be given tax-breaks which would allow them to feed, clothe and house the children. The tax-system should recognize that and not necessarily give the same breaks to individuals with no children, Holder said.
According to the AFC, they also believe that the tax threshold should be increased to as much as $50,000.
Leader of the AFC, Raphael Trotman, said, “For us in the AFC it is a journey; it is not an easy journey but it is one that we do with pride, with some degree of pain ever so often but it is because we are patriotic”.
Trotman stated that a lot of people place a certain degree (a very high degree) of expectation, trust and responsibility on his shoulders and some persons have read statements about him “quitting”.
He admitted there is a lot of frustration in politics, emphasizing that it is not easy going up against a government that does not seem to understand that people are suffering in Guyana.
A section of the gathering present at the AFC’s launching of its Action Plan at UG’s Education Lecture Theatre
He explained that the Government does not seem to understand that despite the differences of people in the AFC (race, creed, culture etc) they are willing to help in the situation where the nation is suffering.
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