Political activist Rickford Burke excoriates the PPP government’s initiative as a “hogwash” digital book dump, accusing it of widening the academic divide and using regional leaders as “snakeoil sales agents.”
GEORGETOWN, GUYANA – A scathing critique from Caribbean political activist Rickford Burke has labeled the Guyana government’s newly launched “Digital School” a “big fake” and a “pernicious lie,” accusing President Irfaan Ali’s administration of orchestrating a cynical public relations hoax at the expense of the nation’s poor and the credibility of CARICOM allies.
The controversy centers on the government’s promotion of the Guyana Digital School, hailed by President Ali and endorsed in video messages by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell as a historic, innovative leap for regional education. Burke, in a detailed dismantling of the initiative, dismisses these accolades as performance based on a false script.
“Clearly the PPP government provided misleading background notes for the scripts these two leaders used to prepare their video messages endorsing this lie and praising Irfaan Ali as a modern innovative leader – all of which is a bunch of ‘Kaka fart’ as Jamaicans would say,” Burke stated. “Guyanese would say ‘hogwash.’”
Burke argues that the project fails the fundamental test of what constitutes a true digital school; a comprehensive, interactive virtual ecosystem with relevant instruction, progress tracking, assessments and pedagogical rigor. Instead, he alleges it is merely a “slab dash centralized storage of digital books,” akin to a customized Moodle platform, and focused on 10th and 11th-grade e-textbooks and CSEC preparation.
“The PPP government has developed no “Digital School”. First they lack the intellectual heft and expertise to conceptualize such an innovative initiative, so they copy the concept from local innovators” Burke charged.
He highlighted a central paradox; the government boasts of 20,000 to 30,000 beneficiaries in local and international media, yet official Ministry of Education figures show fewer than 18,000 students total in those two grades nationwide, so “Is every 10th and 11th grader registered? How? and if yes, then why is the minister still calling for 10th and 11th grade signups? Lies!” said Burke. Furthermore, “..with an estimated 50% of families living in poverty and lacking reliable internet or devices, how are these students accessing the service?”, Burke went on to questions, “who is this platform really for?”
“The privileged children already have access to online resources and now they have even more. Great for them, it just means the academic divide will continue to widen,” he warned, contrasting the platform’s rollout with the stark reality of digital poverty illustrated by a minister’s heavily publicized delivery of a single laptop to a child when the government should be providing free laptops and internet access to all children from vulnerable families.
Burke issued a series of pointed questions to the government and its CARICOM endorsers, demanding transparency on taxpayer funding for Caribbean students, copyright compliance for distributed materials, and an explanation for the inflated enrollment statistics.
The critique broadened into an accusation of systemic obstruction, claiming the government actively frustrates local, privately innovated digital education initiatives—particularly those led by Afro-Guyanese—while funneling oil revenues to foreign contractors.
“This is sick, racist and anti-innovation, but this is the PPP,” Burke asserted, alleging the government uses Black CARICOM leaders as political cover. “Mia Mottley and Dickon Mitchell… should stop allowing racist PPP politicians in Guyana to use them as political pawns to sell snakeoil.”
He called for international media scrutiny and urged a refocusing of resources on foundational issues; repairing schools, providing resources to children and teachers, respecting teachers and raising their salaries, fixing hot schools, and addressing the nation’s high dropout rate.
As of publication, the Government of Guyana has not issued a formal response to Burke’s detailed allegations. The critique presents a significant challenge to the narrative of digital transformation, framing the flagship initiative as a digitally dressed-up resource library that exacerbates inequality and relies on borrowed credibility.
