President promises free education to be restored

Aug 02, 2019 News

Government intends to restore free public education, in keeping with a Constitutional mandate that education should be delivered free of charge, according to President David Granger.

President David Granger delivers an address to the congregation of the Glory Light Tabernacle (Photo: DPI)

The President, speaking at Glory Light Tabernacle’s Sunrise Prayer Breakfast in the village of Plaisance, yesterday, announced his intention to remove the cost on education on the anniversary of Emancipation.
He said “Emancipation means independence… Emancipation means education,” while noting that it was education that unlocked opportunities which freed Africans from their cycle of inter-generational poverty.
“I want us to go back to the time where every village had a school,” the Head of State said.
He said education today is as important as it was in the past, and iterated his commitment to every child having access to education.
“We in Guyana declare a decade for the development of all,” the President said, adding that that decade must protect every citizen’s right and entitlement to education, and pointing to the ‘Decade of development for all’ from 2020 to 2029.
Article 27 of the Constitution of Guyana says every citizen has the right to free education from nursery to university as well as at non-formal places where opportunities are provided for education and training.
While fees are not mandatory for nursery to secondary public schools, tuition fees are charged at the University of Guyana, and they have continued to rise, year after year.
There have been several calls for those fees to be squashed, including from the University of Guyana Student Society (UGSS) and a movement – the Free UG Movement – led by Elson Lowe.
Lowe had said that, according to statistics provided by the Bureau of Statistics, only 2.3 percent of Guyana’s population has a bachelor’s degree. For developed countries, that figure stands at about 30 percent. That means, he said, that Guyana is more than 10 times behind where it needs to be, to provide adequate manpower to perform well on the international stage, and to adequately anticipate the economic boom expected from the budding oil and gas industry. He has calculated that the cost to make UG free of tuition, according to his calculations, would be about $4B; an amount that he is sure the government will be able to manage, given Guyana’s economic prospects.
The President said that profits from oil will indeed be invested into education.
“I have plans for the profits which will come from oil and gas. It is not going to enrich a few; it is going to educate many,” he said.
Responding to the announcement, Lowe told Kaieteur News, “We believe free university will indeed help break through the inter-generational poverty cycle… and that it will help lead to a more inclusive and cohesive society.”

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