The Government of Guyana is spending billions outsourcing education as it continues to ignore the necessity for similar investments locally that could expand and improve local institutions and quality of life of local educators. In the 2024 Budget, Government allocated $4.1 Billion to the University of Guyana (UG) and a staggering $4 Billion to the overseas-based Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL).
A 2022 World Bank Report, looking at the Human Capital Index, stated a child born in Guyana today will only be 50 percent as productive when she grows up as she could be if she enjoyed complete education and full health. This is lower than the average for the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region and upper middle-income countries. The low human capital score is in part driven by low educational and health outcomes.
Although the average Guyanese student is expected to complete 12.2 years of schooling, this is equivalent to only 6.8 years of learning when expressed in terms of Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS). Government has put no strategic policy in place, including measurable indices, to reverse the gloomy figures. Instead, it is pumping Guyana’s oil money in the GOAL project analysts criticized for the absence of a structure that identifies skills the new economy needs, referring to the project as a political scheme to reward allies and channel money out the country.
Continuing the disinvestment in local education institutions Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton and Richard Maughn, Chief Executive Officer of the Board of Industrial Training (BIT), last Thursday met with representatives of the Canada-based George Brown College to discuss opportunities in Guyana. The sum of money that will leave Guyana to foreign shores, as local educators and institutions are ignored, would be shrouded in secrecy like many other projects that have characterised Government’s management of the people’s resources.
In a statement, Government said the two sides are seeking to establish partnership to create a skilled workforce by equipping individuals with the essential skills to be employable, as well as expanding train-the-trainer programmes. How the Government plans to do this even as it refuses to acknowledge the value of public-school teachers and meet with the Teachers Union to address Wages/Salary and Working Conditions is anybody’s guess.
This year education received 2 percent of the Budget whilst infrastructure got 58 percent. Derek Bok, a former President of Harvard University, United States of America, and Ann Landers, syndicated advice columnist, are credited with the statement: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Government’s myopic view of education and concomitant discriminatory policy is also manifested in disinvestment in wages/salaries and working conditions for public-school teachers. Minister of Education Priya Manickchand, during the teachers’ 29 days strike, said she doesn’t think teachers deserve a 20 percent pay increase for any given year.
Public school teachers, from nursery to secondary, are a nation’s foundational educators. They mould the nation’s minds and prepare the bulk of a nation’s children for their role in nation-building. Ignoring their right to better working conditions by deliberately withholding money and other services Government can afford to provide will not create an educated society but a continuous exodus of teachers who represent years of accumulated knowledge, experience and skills that have served the nation well.
The disinvestment in UG, public school system and teachers, local institutions such as the Critchlow Labour College (CLC) that has historically partnered with Government in the training and education of workers and the unemployed is bad. This year the Government excluded CLC from the Budget. In addition to providing workers training and education CLC provides second chance to complete secondary education, sit the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) exams, enter the workforce, UG or venture into entrepreneurship. Most of the students who benefit from these opportunities are from low and medium- income communities. Removal of the subvention denies such opportunities.
Retarding the intellectual growth of the population and increasing unemployment have adverse economic and social consequences.
In the new economy where Guyana is afflicted by skills shortage too many youth are deprived opportunities to complete secondary education. Many do not have or could afford the technology to pursue online-education, whilst some find it challenging to learn in this setting. These children are falling through the cracks because their learning needs are not being met.
As Government undervalue their educators, other societies are sweeping them up, offering compensation that has seen significant improvement in standard of living and ability to support loved ones at home. The societies these teachers are moving too are benefitting as Guyana continues to lag.
Meanwhile Minister Hamilton boasts that the labour ministry, within three years, has provided training opportunities for over 11,000 persons nationwide. This means nothing if these skills have not been transferred to employment and self-employment due to the absence of work or support and guidance to go into small business. Some may have since migrated. The minister has not been able to provide any data to prove net-gain or loss of the ministry’s BIT project.
