Free education from nursery to university will be a game changer

Aug 04, 2019 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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In a few months Guyana will be a petroleum-producing country. This will have a transformative effect on all of our lives. However, the question being asked by the average Guyanese is; what does all of this mean and how will I benefit?
First, don’t be fooled by the preachers of ‘doom and gloom’, the future outlook for Guyana is bright. With world class amounts of oil and gas to be extracted from our Exclusive Economic Zone – EEZ – Guyana is poised for an economic take-off.
In an address to the National Assembly on October 18, 2018 President David Granger was correct when he said that oil production will be the most transformative economic development in our history. With production just months away, the APNU +AFC government has taken steps to ensure that the revenues accrued from this sector will not be squandered but, instead, will be invested strategically in building human and institutional capacity, our infrastructural deficit, and providing economic security for future generations.
Speaking to a massive crowd of more than five thousand Guyanese assembled at Union Village on the Corentyne on August 1, 2019; President Granger iterated that priority will be given to investments in our human capital, especially our public education system.
The President said, “We have a plan which will ensure that the forthcoming decade will be a “decade of development” for all Guyanese that will place emphasis on education: Every citizen has a right to education. This is a basic entitlement of all children. Free education is an entitlement mandated by our Constitution [Article 27], which states, “Every citizen has the right to free education from nursery to university…”
The President went on to say that our expected petroleum revenues will help us to restore free education in accordance with the injunction of our Constitution at the primary, secondary and university levels.
There are those who are so dishonest that they peddle misinformation meant to distort and downplay the bright future that lies ahead. Make no mistake, Guyana today is a country whose economic prospects are bright.
A field of unprecedented opportunities lies before us. The opportunities for engineers to build the roads and bridges to open up our vast hinterland, linking our country east and west and to develop schemes to exploit our hydro-electric potential; the opportunity for geologists to develop our bauxite, manganese, diamond, gold, and quarrying resources; the opportunity for biologists, botanists, zoologists and agriculturists to expand food production; the opportunity to improve Information Communication Technologies – ICT – and human learning; the opportunity for manufacturers, shippers, builders to drive our economy forward at a faster rate.
These opportunities can only be achieved by people with a first-class education. These opportunities can only be achieved by the creation of an ‘education nation’.
In his address on Emancipation Day, President Granger’s announcement that our expected oil revenues would help to restore free education from nursery to university was prescient, for he knows and he has acknowledged on several occasions that education is an entitlement. Free education from nursery to university will be a game changer.
As part of his vision for the education transformation after first oil, the President laid out the following vision; “In every village, there must be a school”. The ‘Decade of development’ will ensure that there is at least one primary school in every village. East Berbice-Corentyne, with a population of 110,000 persons, has 135 villages but only 53 primary schools with 11,000 students.
In every school, there must be a place for every child. Every Guyanese child must have easy access to school by road or river. The Public Education Transportation Service (PETS) (known as the 3Bs initiative) was also launched four years ago. Our expected petroleum revenues will extend and expand it. Twenty-nine buses, twelve boats and more than 1,400 bicycles have been distributed so far under PETS, to make it easier for children to attend school.
In every school, science, technology, engineering and mathematics must be taught. The Public Education system will continue to equip students for the knowledge-based societies of the future.
It will expand the National Endowment for Science and Technology (NEST) which, over the past four years, has been providing grants for the improvement of school’s science laboratories. The ‘Decade’ will expand the Guyana Youth Corps to ensure that boys and girls who leave school without matriculating – from the coastland and hinterland – are given an opportunity to be trained to re-enter the world of work.
The APNU+AFC government is creating a 21st century nation. Our education policy aims at providing Guyanese with the knowledge, skills and values to become productive citizens in the economy of the future. We will build an education nation. We will use or revenues from the petroleum sector to bring our people together in a knowledge society. We will use our resources to repel the dark forces of poverty, hatred and oppression that threaten to pull us apart.
Ours will be an education nation, where intelligence prevails over ignorance, cooperation over confrontation and national integration over communal disintegration.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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