The GOAL programme needs to be audited

Mar 08, 2025 Letters

Dear Editor,

The current scandal involving the Staffordshire University denying its involvement in the GOAL program validates the call made by Mr. Terrence Campbell in January 2025 for a “value for money” audit.

To be fair, the GOAL program offering Guyanese the opportunity to obtain degrees up to the doctorate level is an outstanding initiative of the Ali Administration. It opens the door for anybody to obtain higher qualifications, and it’s free. That’s a good thing. But we must always be monitoring program quality and program implementation.

The people whom the President appointed to run the program must do an excellent job so the Government looks good all the time. Sadly, the current Staffordshire scandal brings a bad name to the President as those in charge seem to be napping and messing up.

A good thing, poorly implemented, is bringing shame to the Government. Heads should roll. The Director has let down the Government. No excuse can exonerate what happened. It’s just shameful. Who is monitoring the GOAL folks? Where is the Ministry of Education in all of this?

GOAL must improve its customer service to students. Students have complained of the unresponsiveness of GOAL staff. At certain times, GOAL people are not in the office and work from home, so you can’t get them on the office phone if they are at home. They are not efficient at answering questions posed on their website. Students who have completed programs don’t know the procedures for getting their certificates/diplomas. And GOAL can’t tell you what’s going on.

Will GOAL be in charge of the President’s new Digital School project? The Government may want to rethink that or else a good idea may be badly implemented and get screwed up.

The GOAL people themselves may want to take classes in program management. How are programs offered by GOAL linked to the needs of oil and gas and STEM? Are they providing too many programs not tied to the manpower we need to serve the oil and gas economy?
So, an independent review is needed now.

Lastly, if we believe in local content, why are we building and financing other people’s universities, when we could have run GOAL through UG, maybe at the Berbice campus? True, UG has its own problems, but we need to implement reforms there to make things better.

Why is UG not going back to face-to-face? Is it a GOAL-like program too? GOAL and UG must help us with the crisis in education, not be part of the crisis itself.

Sincerely,
M. Singh

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