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Universal secondary education achievable within months – President Ramotar
The attainment of universal secondary education is attainable within months. At least this is what President Donald Ramotar led residents of Bartica to believe when he addressed them at a campaign rally on Saturday.
President Donald Ramotar as he addressed the gathering at the PPP/C’s Bartica rally on Saturday
“In a matter of months, after we win the next elections, the May 11 elections, we will have universal secondary education in Guyana,” said an emphatic Ramotar as he spoke to a gathering at the Didi Ramnauth Square, First Avenue, Bartica, Region Seven.
While Guyana has been able to achieve universal primary education, efforts are still being made for the realisation of universal secondary education. Minister of Education Priya Manickchand, had two years ago announced that this achievement would be realised under the Donald Ramotar’s administration.
His tenure was slated to end next year but was cut short due to early elections slated for May 11, 2015.
Attaining both the universal primary and secondary education are among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that Guyana like a number of other countries has signed on to achieve, by the end of this year.
The two are detailed among the MDGs which respond to the world’s main development challenges. The MDGs were established in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations and signed by 147 Heads of State and Governments during the United Nations Millennium Summit September 2000.
The attainment of universal primary and secondary education is listed as Goal Three which aims to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education at all levels by 2015.
As part of its drive to attain universal secondary education, Government, through the Ministry of Education, last year revealed plans to build three new secondary schools.
These additional facilities at Good Hope, East Coast Demerara; Yarrowkabra, Soesdyke/Linden Highway and Westminster/La Parfaite Harmonie in Region Three, will ensure 2,600 additional places for public school students.
Although keen efforts are being made to attain universal secondary education, Manickchand was adamant that there is yet more work to be done before Guyana can claim this status at a national level. She however noted that “we will not rest until universal secondary education, that is, a general secondary education, is available to all of our secondary school age students.”
But according to President Ramotar on Saturday, “We are on the verge of attaining universal secondary education; in fact in some regions of the country we already have universal secondary education.”
He said that because of the efforts of his party some 90 per cent of children who leave primary schools are now able to attend secondary school unlike a period under another regime when only 30 per cent of the nation’s children so benefited.
And achieving these goals, he noted, is seen as important since the world is moving at a rapid pace in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEMS).
These, according to him, are “playing a bigger and bigger role in the economy of our country and it means that education is a key factor in fighting poverty and preparing our people for high paying jobs.”
Ramotar went on to point out that the PPP/C is on a mission to attract investments not because “we have low wages like many third world countries…we want to attract investment here because we have a highly educated and a highly skilled work force in our country and we intend to be the most educated people in the whole Caribbean under the PPP/C Government.”
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