Executive Member of the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM), Randolph Critchlow, has launched a scathing critique of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government’s decision to dismantle the Bertram Collins College of the Public Service (BCCPS), describing it as an act of “political vandalism” that undermined national development and professional excellence.
In a strongly worded letter to the editor titled “Dismantled Progress, Repackaged as Innovation,” Critchlow accused the PPP administration of destroying one of Guyana’s most promising institutions for civil service training and then attempting to disguise its absence by partnering with the online learning platform Coursera.
“When the PPP government shut down the Bertram Collins College of the Public Service in 2021, they did more than close a building; they dismantled an institution that symbolised national investment in professional excellence,” Critchlow wrote.
Bertram Collins College of the Public Service
The Bertram Collins College of the Public Service, established in 2016 under the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) administration, was created to professionalise Guyana’s public service by recruiting, training, and mentoring young Guyanese for long-term careers in government. Named after Dr. Bertram A.N. Collins, the College offered structured, accredited courses delivered by local educators and combined classroom learning with practical attachments in ministries and regional offices.
The institution admitted young cadets—mostly between the ages of 17 and 21—from across the country, providing them with civic education, leadership training, and hands-on experience in governance. By 2018, over 250 cadets had completed its programmes, which were designed to instill professionalism, impartiality, and integrity in the public service.
Government officials at the time described the College as a step toward creating an “educated, innovative, and unbribable” bureaucracy capable of delivering effective service to citizens. However, in February 2021, the PPP/C government closed the College, claiming it had been “politically misused” and had functioned as a recruitment arm for the previous administration.
Critics, including former Public Service Minister Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, rejected that view, maintaining that the College was a national investment aimed at solving long-standing problems of inefficiency in the public sector.
Adding his voice to the controversy, Critchlow deemed the PPP’s action “not administrative [but] ideological — a reckless attempt to erase a predecessor’s achievement, even at the cost of national progress.” He accused the government of acting out of political spite, saying that “the PPP terminated its staff, abandoned its campus, and reduced years of planning and curriculum development to rubble.”
Coursera Partnership Branded “Hollow Modernisation”
Critchlow also took aim at the government’s Coursera partnership, launched in 2023 as part of efforts to expand public service training through online learning. He labelled the initiative “a stunning twist of hypocrisy,” arguing that it is no substitute for the physical, mentorship-driven training once provided by the College.
“Coursera is not a national training programme,” he said. “It is an open, foreign-based digital platform that offers generic online courses to anyone with a credit card and a strong Wi-Fi signal. It has no tailored curriculum for Guyana’s public service, no contextual understanding of our governance frameworks, and no faculty accountable to the public.”
Critchlow argued that replacing an institution designed to “mentor, evaluate, and mould young professionals for national service” with “an imported online catalogue” is “short-sighted, lazy, and deeply unserious.” He added that “public administration demands mentorship, accountability, and immersion in national context — not YouTube-style lectures and auto-graded quizzes.”
The FGM executive described the government’s new approach as “abdication of responsibility” and “the outsourcing of national development to a platform that neither knows nor cares about Guyana.”
“The Bertram Collins College represented investment in local capacity; Coursera represents withdrawal from it,” he said. “What the PPP calls modernisation is, in fact, abdication of responsibility.”
Critchlow urged the government to reverse course and reinvest in local capacity building by restoring the College. “If the PPP government truly wishes to demonstrate that it is serious about improving, modernising, and professionalising the public service, then it must have the courage to restore what it destroyed,” he declared.
“Bring back a real public service college — one that develops human capacity, nurtures leadership, and builds institutions rooted in Guyanese values and expertise. Only then can we speak credibly about modernisation. Until that happens,” he warned, “all we have is a hollow imitation of progress.”
