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Former UG Registrar urges Govt. to address fundamental scholarship issues

Apr 24, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Former University of Guyana Registrar, Vincent Alexander, has underscored the need for fundamental issues to be addressed under the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) Initiative so that there is an effective rollout. The GOAL initiative was introduced by the PPP/C administration, in keeping with its manifesto promise to grant 20,000 online scholarships to Guyanese. In addition, it sees collaboration between the Ministry of Public Service and the Ministry of Education for its implementation.
Given his expertise in the education sector, Alexander was able to make several key observations concerning the GOAL initiative and later posed pertinent questions to the Government.
In a letter carried in this newspaper’s April 21, 2021 edition, Alexander highlighted that the Government has already kick-started the advertisement of the scholarships, yet many aspects are unclear. He first pointed out that the Government has indicated there are two main aspects of the initiative; the administration, set to be executed by the Public Service Ministry and the management of the academic and technical aspects, which will be undertaken by the Ministry of Education.
The former Registrar highlighted that Guyana has years of experience administering scholarships offered at local and foreign institutions, so that aspect should not pose many challenges. Be that as it may, Alexander said, “The intention of the Ministry to manage the academic and technical aspects of the programme poses questions regarding the proposed roles for the Ministry and GOAL. If the institutions are offering these online programmes as they have traditionally delivered them, why does the Ministry need to be involved?”
Alexander further noted, that the advertised programmes range from six months technical and vocational programmes to Master’s Degrees and the Government also indicated that the awardees would be guaranteed jobs in the public sector. With that in mind, he furthered his inquires, asking whether the Government is “seriously contemplating” proffering jobs in the public sector to graduates who may just have a two-month certificate in “Awareness Programme on Dairy Farming for Rural Farmers” or a six-month certificate in “Motorcycle Service and Repair.” “Those seem like programmes for practitioners, who might be self-employed or in the Private Sector,” he posited.
Alexander also pointed to the fact that many of the advertised programmes at the Bachelor’s level require ‘A’ level or Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) qualifications. In light of that, he asked if Guyana’s school system is producing a sufficient number of persons with those qualifications, or whether the number of persons accessing those programmes is limited.
Additionally, since in future years many persons will complete the six-month Bachelor Preparatory Programme being offered under GOAL, there is also uncertainty as it relates to the required ‘A’ level and CAPE qualifications for entry into Bachelor programmes and whether that programme will gain persons entry.
The aforementioned issues were among the many stressed in Alexander’s letter. He has affirmed that in the interest of developing an effective scholarship initiative, his questions require urgent answers and (or) attention.

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