Dear Editor,
Recently, the President of Liberia announced that there will be free education for all undergraduate Liberians. This I believe is a good move by the President of Liberia and which I think should be emulated here too in Guyana. It would be something good to use part of our newly found oil wealth to educate and empower our people instead of wasting it on projects that are not feasible. Citizens of most other countries as we do here in Guyana must pay for their education.
I have great respect for former President Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham’s (1st Executive President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana) view for free education from Kindergarten to University despite we were “poor kale”. Former President Burnham set up a system of National Service hopefully to generate the income that would pay for Guyanese citizens’ university education through a two-year system of service in the National Service for production, education, discipline and also occupation activity in the interior regions to show strength, military prowess and that we are occupying our lands. This is nothing new in third world countries as far as I am concerned but we have to give Guyana the credit for this idea since we had this under Burnham’s Government in the late 60’s and 70’s and early 80’s of the People’s National Congress.
There are world class tuition-free universities (for international students as well) in European countries such as Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Finland which provide the benefits of students from poor families being afforded the opportunities to develop their academic potential and be more of an asset to their communities and countries.
This is a good direction to take in the area of education and we need to study it – despite whichever government stays or goes into power, whether we have a national cohesion or not- and that whichever elected government I hope will make these things possible for our people and stop making it impossible for the people of Guyana to survive, get an education, to live in dignity and harmony whether they support the particular political entity in government or not.
Yours faithfully,
Roshan Khan Snr.
