Hinterland education is being repositioned to help to eliminate inequalities, says President David Granger who has restated that oil revenues will ensure that free education from nursery to university becomes a reality.
“Education, next to food, clothing and shelter, is essential to nurturing the next generation and to prepare them for leadership. Measurable progress is evident in the field of public education. Plans are on stream to continue improving hinterland education over the next ten years in what I have dubbed the ‘Decade of Development’, from 2020 to 2029,” he said at the official launch of Indigenous Heritage Month at the Sophia Exhibition Complex yesterday. He had noted that development is about long-term progress and involves integrated planning and implementation – in education, the economy, society and security – to achieve change everywhere.
“The ‘decade’ will protect citizens’ right to universal primary, secondary and tertiary education. Guyana’s petroleum profits will be deployed, in part, to improve education, including and especially hinterland education. Primary education is a basic entitlement of all children. It is the foundation for advanced learning,” said Granger.
Pointing to Article 27 of the Constitution which states, “Every citizen has the right to free education from nursery to university as well as at non-formal places where opportunities are provided for education and training,” the president, who is performing the functions of a caretaker until general elections are held, said that the upcoming decade will restore free education as an entitlement.
Highlighting the growth in investment in education over the past four years, Granger said that hinterland education is being repositioned to help to eliminate inequalities and to ensure that every child goes to school and that no child is left behind. He said that the ‘Decade of Development will help to eliminate the educational inequalities between the hinterland and coastland by devoting more resources to hinterland education.
“It will allow the training of a greater number of hinterland teachers; offer improved student accommodation and transportation; and establish more hinterland schools and other educational institutions,” he said.
Granger told attendees that as this country embarks on celebrating its Indigenous peoples and their history, everyone should be endeavour to ensure that the next generation could enjoy a future that is more pleasant than the past. He said that evidence of the developmental changes currently ongoing in the hinterland is cause for hope.
“Hinterland residents should not think that they have fallen behind the rest of the country in terms of access to public educational opportunities. Education is the great equaliser. It is the key to reversing hinterland underdevelopment and providing employment. It will unlock opportunities for all and help to provide the skills for development,” he said.
He underscored that key to ensuring a “brighter future” for this nation is education and his government was planning assiduously to ensure this.
Going back in time, Granger pointed out that the path and pattern of public education in the hinterland were set in the immediate post-Independence period, 50 years ago and made reference to the late Prime Minister Forbes Burnham’s address to Amerindian Leaders in 1969. He said that Burnham “promulgated a policy aimed at ensuring the efficient delivery of public services to the indigenous population.”
The APNU+AFC leader believes that education is the main instrument towards ensuring that objective.
“Education is the cornerstone of government’s plans to ensure greater equality between the hinterland and the coastland, to reduce poverty and to provide greater economic opportunities for indigenous communities and peoples. Hinterland education is being repositioned to help to eliminate inequalities and to ensure that ‘every child goes to school and that no child is left behind. Educational policy aims at ensuring that every child has access to education, attends school and achieves the level that allows her or him to graduate from school with the knowledge, skills and values to become a happy citizen,” he said.
Plagued
But he noted that his government had to work hard to achieve all it wants and was not helped much by the past PPP/C administration as the public educational system was plagued with many problems.
“Some hinterland schools and dormitories were in a deplorable state; substance abuse had penetrated a few schools; allegations of physical violence and sexual abuse were being made and, sadly, students had lost their lives,” he said, listing a number of incidents to support his claim.
“No government could be happy with so many, so frequent and such serious, reports. Hinterland education, still, is far from perfect but we have come a long way from those grim, grisly days and progress has been made. We are making progress,” he said.
“Parents and residents no longer need to protest against the conditions at hinterland dormitories and schools. Students now feel safer and are more comfortable because of the interventions and improvements which have been made over the past 50 months. Hinterland educational infrastructure is being renovated, repaired and rehabilitated. Hinterland schools are among more than 100 educational institutions which have been built and upgraded,” he added, while highlighting benefits made possible by his government.
Noting investments in infrastructure and information technology, the expansion of the school-feeding scheme and the provision of transportation and scholarships, Granger said that collectively, they have helped to reduce the number of hinterland school drop-outs from 10 primary school students per week in 2014 to an average of three students per week in 2017.
An average of 17 secondary school students dropped out weekly from hinterland schools in 2014; this has declined to an average of five per week in 2017, according to the president.
He reiterated that hinterland education is now being established on a strong footing and will be prioritised over the next ten years. Education will be a cornerstone of the decade which will continue the task of repositioning education which commenced four years ago, he stated.
He said that the trend of increasing budgetary allocations for education will also continue to keep hinterland education on the right path. “The future is bright. Real change takes time but is more enduring. We must continue the task of improving hinterland education,” Granger said.
