Oil money should be used to buy laptops for every school child - Cathy Hughes

Oil money should be used to buy laptops for every school child – Cathy Hughes

Feb 05, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – “We are the fastest growing oil producing nation but the best we can do is 11,000 laptops. Surely by now, with access to US$607M from oil reserves, every Guyanese child should have been given a laptop.”
This was the assertion of Former Minister with responsibility for the Telecommunications Sector under the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) regime, Cathy Hughes, when she added her voice yesterday to this year’s Budget debates on the $553B Estimated spending for this year.
The AFC Executive was at the time addressing what she called a growing disparity with regard the delivery of education in Guyana which she contends has in recent years, descended into a form of apartheid.
According to Hughes, there is a huge disparity in the educational fortunes of those who cannot afford to pay for a private education, those who attend the very small list of leading public schools and those who are condemned for the rest of their lives to menial jobs because their opportunity for a better quality of tutorship, particularly at the primary level, “was denied them because of either an absence of adequate resources particularly as a result of the absence of technology in the schools they are forced to attend.”
She was adamant, “this disparity has now reached the status of a virtual apartheid in education between the well-resourced and privileged and those who are condemned to attend schools with little or no internet facilities.”
Hughes told the House, “…we all know that there is a direct correlation between access to internet and the prospect of improved results and better matriculation. And that’s why the provisions in this budget for the expansion of the telecoms sector are critical.”
She noted that children who have little or no access to the internet will not access the educational material and resources which are essential to improving their opportunities to secure better grades.
The former government minister in the ousted APNU+AFC administration told Members of parliament that in order to reverse “the virtual apartheid in education between the better resourced, better connected, the haves and the have-nots, a targeted allocation of financial resources to the most disadvantaged underprivileged sections of society is required.”
To this end she called for a marshal plan for the underprivileged schools, teachers training facilities, educational research facilities, devices – like laptops, tablets and connectivity, are critical. These, she said, cannot be found in budget 2022.
“Whether urban, rural or in the hinterland, the schools without access or limited access should be allocated greater resources to afford the children of the under privileged a chance of real participation in the bounty Guyana has to offer.”
According to Hughes, “this will not happen by way of handouts but by affording them the opportunity of being appropriately qualified at the highest level in order to benefit from the local content framework which is being established.”
Qualifying her position further, Hughes told the House that some interesting figures have emerged during the course of the debates and pointed to the 11,000 laptops to be provided for the approximately 200,000 children and student receiving education.

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Oil money should be used to buy laptops for every school child – Cathy Hughes

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