PPP cash grant to children in public schools is inadequate

Jul 15, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

It must be the joke of the century for the Minister of Education to be advocating a $19,000 (under US$100) payout for every child in public schools, since this programme is ill conceived and will not improve the lives of the children, parents or teachers or increase their access to education. It is inadequate by the cheapest of calculations.
It is laughable because the payout cannot achieve the two critical objectives of improving the lives of children, parents and teachers and increasing our children’s access to education.
At the wider level, it fits into the PPP scheme to bribe our people and create dependence rather than increasing our people’s capacity to earn and live decent and fulfilling lives. The PPP uses state resources to create dependency so that they can dominate and control the lives of the people of Guyana. This approach must be condemned and resisted.
With the critical issues facing parents and their children at this time of COVID-19, the programme cannot help them surmount their problems. It would not satisfy our people’s basic needs – $19,000 cannot cushion the ill effects of parents out of jobs and those fired by the PPP during COVID. It cannot cushion the adverse effects of the more than 50% increase in the cost of living while there has been no wages and salaries increases. Our people’s real income has declined making life difficult. It cannot begin to help children to access education on the internet since data cost a lot. In addition, many areas that were given free government internet by the APNU+AFC have been cut off to restrict access to the internet on political grounds and many communities are without internet and the purchasing power to access the internet.
Clearly the aim is not to make education accessible and people’s lives better. It is another PPP scheme to provide income through corruption to the PPP elite, family, friends and a select group of PPP members and supporters.
What Guyana needs is a well thought out programme that is aimed at improving the lives of children, parents and teachers and improving students and teachers’ access to online and other forms of teaching and learning. This new cash grant cannot achieve these two basic objectives.
This ridiculous $19,000 cash grant is a joke. It is another attempt to bribe people without addressing the problems that affect them. A $19,000 grant cannot achieve the above stated objectives. It will become another means of PPP corruption and discrimination like the so-called COVID-19 Relief PPP Corruption Fund.

Yours truly,
Aubrey C. Norton

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PPP cash grant to children in public schools is inadequate

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