A decade for youth development

Dec 29, 2019 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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(Excerpts from an address by HE David Granger at the Youth Empowerment Summit Linden, 19th December 2019)

The next decade will be the most transformative in our nation’s history. It will become the most important era for young people. The progress made over the past four years will be accelerated exponentially over the next ten, as Guyana transitions rapidly towards a modern, developed state. You will grow up to live in a country with:
∙ an education system and a first-rate healthcare system that are among the best in the Caribbean;
∙ an economy that generates employment for all young people; and
∙ an infrastructure network – including aerodromes, bridges and roads linking every community and region – and with ICT connecting every village, household and public agency.
Young people constitute the majority of the country’s population:
∙ two out of every three Guyanese are below the age of 35;
∙ one in every three is between the ages of 15 and 35; and
∙ one in every five is between the ages of 15 and 25 years.
Young people are vital to the nation’s progress. You will become the brains and sinews of our ‘green’ economy. You will be the motors of change and progress. You will need to be provided with the knowledge, skills and values necessary to participate in a transformative economy and progressive society.
Every young person, no matter where he or she resides, should be provided with greater job-creation opportunities and share, equitably, in the country’s prosperity; young people should be afforded a greater role in the country’s decision-making.
The ‘good life’ will be unattainable unless young people have access to better education, enjoy greater equality, are provided with increased employment opportunities and are empowered to make decisions that affect them.
The National Youth Policy rests on these four cornerstones of youth development – education, equality, empowerment and employment. The ‘Policy’ explains Government’s vision as:
… a nation in which young people are united, educated, trained, safe, happy, healthy and integrally involved in the decision-making processes, while enjoying equality of opportunity and equal access to the resources of our country and are politically, economically and socially empowered.
Education: Education is an essential element in employment, empowerment and equality. It is the principal pillar of Government’s youth policy. Education is the foundation for the achievement of a good life. Prospects for self-development will be precluded until and unless young people are provided with the knowledge, skills and values which are necessary for them to become productive citizens and to provide for themselves and their families, adequately.
Your Government is improving education. More money is being spent on the public education system that ever before. More than G$170B has been expended on education over the past four years. Expenditure in the public education sector moved from 14.8 per cent of the national budget in 2014 to 17.0 per cent in 2017. A total of $G52.2B was allocated to the education sector this year, up from G$ 32.3 B budgeted in 2014, an increase of 61 per cent.
∙ The Public Education Transport Service (PETS – known popularly as the 3 Bs Initiative) – which provides free transportation by buses, boats and with bicycles – is making it easier for children to attend school.
∙ The Public Education Nutrition Service (PENS) –known as the school-feeding programme – has been expanded. More than 20,000 students now benefit from some form of school feeding in 216 hinterland nursery and primary schools and annexes.

∙ The Public Education IDEAL (Improving Digital Equity, Access and Learning) Programme is enhancing educational delivery with a total of 175 primary schools, 106 secondary schools and 34 technical and vocational institutions connected to the internet to support remote-access learning, online research and to help students with their academic assignments and homework.

∙ The Public Service Scholarship Programme (PSSP) awarded 1,888 scholarships to students drawn from every administrative region, and the Hinterland Scholarship Programme awarded 882 scholarships, since 2015, as part of its policy to provide education and training to youths.

∙ The National Endowment for Science and Technology (NEST) is promoting science education in schools. Teacher training is being improved. Investments, totalling more than G$ 50M, have been made to improve science laboratories at the Cyril Potter College of Education.
Equality: Equality is the second pillar of your Government’s youth development policy. Everyone desires, demands and deserves a good life. Development will be deformed unless growth is accompanied by greater income, gender, geographic and ethnic equality.
Disparities in opportunity between the coastland and the hinterland and between urban and rural areas must be reduced and, eventually, eliminated. The gender gap will be closed by ensuring that girls and boys are given equal access to education, training and upward economic and political mobility.
Everyone must have access to education. Schooling becomes a powerful equalizer when opportunities for quality education and training are accessible by the entire population. Educational opportunities open prospects for upward mobility, especially to disadvantaged groups.
Your government, already, is pursuing greater equality by providing improved access to public services – business registration, immigration, legal services, public education, public health, public information, public infrastructure, public security, public telecommunications, electricity and water.
Regionalization is helping to remove geographic inequalities. Every Region will have its own capital town which will drive its development. Regional development will act as a catalyst for faster hinterland and rural development.
Empowerment: Empowerment is the third pillar of the National Youth Policy. Young people are being empowered to contribute to their own development and to the decision-making in their communities and country.
The restoration of local democracy, after an absence of more than two decades, triggered a surge in youth participation. Young candidates contested and campaigned in local government elections in 2016 and 2018.
The voices of the young people are being heard in their villages, neighbourhoods, in their regions and in the National Assembly. Young professionals and entrepreneurs are being consulted in the fashioning of our annual budgets and in the development of government policies.
Employment: The fourth pillar of the national youth policy is employment. Your government is promoting job creation through self-employment. Several initiatives – aimed at providing young people with marketable skills, including entrepreneurship – have been launched. Seed capital and micro-financing are providing them with self-employment opportunities. Initiatives include the:
∙ Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) programme, launched in 2016, provided financing and technical support for more than 400 community projects which support income-generation and entrepreneurship, including youth entrepreneurship;
∙ Hinterland Employment and Youth Service (HEYS), launched in 2015 assisted in creating more than 1,200 jobs and trained some 3,728 hinterland youths;
∙ Linden Enterprise Network (LEN), re-launched in December 2015 with an injection of G$155M from the Government, disbursed 570 loans totalling G$326.2M over the past four years;
∙ Micro and Small Enterprise Development Scheme aimed at removing some of the traditional bottlenecks – financing and lack of skills training – which inhibit small- and micro-sized enterprises disbursed 559 grants between 2015 and 2018 which supported initiatives in the fields of agro-processing, apiculture, aquaculture, business outsourcing, cultural industries and eco-tourism;
∙ Guyana Youth Corps – aimed at ensuring that our young people are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to become productive citizens and at providing for themselves and their families while enhancing national and community development – was re-launched on 28th March 2019 after having been inaugurated on the 1st January 1968 by the Government-of-the-day;
∙ Guyana Industrial Training Centre has graduated a total of 734 persons since 2015 trained in data operations, electrical installation, furniture-making, masonry, metallurgy, motor vehicle repairs, plumbing and welding;
∙ Board of Industrial Training equipped more than 8,000 young persons with technical vocational skills over the past four years; and.
∙ Youth Innovation Project of Guyana – launched in 2017 with the aim of encouraging innovative project ideas from young persons aged 14 to 35 years, youth groups, schools and faith-based organizations – selected 105 projects, from all 10 administrative regions, for approval of which 65 have received funding totally G$97.3M, so far.
Youth development programmes have expanded over the past four years. Youth development is reaching every corner of the country. Never before, in our country’s history, has so much been done for young people in so short a period.

(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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