Opposition Member of Parliament, Coretta McDonald yesterday charged that the University of Guyana (UG) is under attack, pointing out that both the institution and the GOAL online programme are expected to receive similar funding in the 2024 budget.
As the budget debate got underway in the National Assembly, she pointed out that $4.1 billion has been budgeted to support the operations of the University of Guyana while $4 billion has been allocated to support the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) programme. Critics have argued that that money could be better spent on Guyana’s primary source of tertiary education.
According to McDonald, the 2024 budget has nothing to transform the lives of teachers or change their “sad realities.” She said, “Education is in trouble” adding that it is a critical sector where there has been gloating over quality and not quantity.
In her presentation, she said, “Sir the University of Guyana is under attack if there was any question about this, this budget, and the Vice President has removed all doubt from our minds… There is no other assessment to make…”
She pointed out that the university, a 60-year-old institution, has been allotted $4.1b, while the three-year-old GOAL programme is to get $4b, “what a travesty and unpatriotic move by the caring government, the PPP.”
Assessing that the PPP/C government does not want the university to grow, McDonald opined that the present government is fearful that the university graduates “pose a threat to their control freak-ism.”
“Over the years, the university has emerged as an important institution that indirectly checks the government and its excesses. The physical attendances lead to the congregation of students in societies. They discuss the world and invariably, students leave the university conscious and more educated… They sit in classrooms with lecturers who teach them how to think critically, this is the fear of the People’s Progressive Party.”
She continued, “They cannot control the university and what they cannot control, they do not fund… The PPP has always viewed the university as an institution of resistance that must be punished.”
McDonald then stated that while any chance for Guyanese to be qualified and add to their resumes is welcomed, the opposition remains concerned over this approach and added that the government’s push to online education should be coupled with the development of the university.
She opined that the two objectives can be combined. “We could develop UG and at the same time, move to online learning. It is unacceptable that the university’s funding is now equal to an academy of learning that is under direct political direction.”
She added that this would have been the perfect opportunity to fund the university and make it into a world-class institution, claiming that the Opposition’s research has uncovered major issues with the GOAL programme.
However, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand during her presentation in response to McDonald stressed that it is the government’s responsibility to facilitate any citizen who would want to pursue an education in the best way they can.
She noted that it was the PPP/C’s Cheddi Jagan who started the University of Guyana which the then PNC had labeled “Jagan’s night school.”
However, Manickchand stressed, “It is our University of Guyana and we will fund it and continue to fund it… It is very precious to us; it is very precious to us.”
She then pointed out that it was the APNU+AFC who raised the tuition fees resulting in university students begging for relief with all of their pleas being ignored by the then administration.
Meanwhile, Manickchand also added that it was important to understand the difference between GOAL and the Coursera programmes being offered both of which benefit learners differently.
“Coursera is different from GOAL, GOAL is different from the University of Guyana, it is important that we understand what they are. Coursera is a series of short courses offered to the people to upskill or reskill through various, hundreds of universities, renowned universities like Harvard and MIT and Princeton and Oxford and Cambridge those are the Coursera courses.”
She added, that it was “painful” to learn that the Commonwealth of Learning was “begging” the previous administration to offer Coursera but they did not.
In using a printout from a news article from September 2018, to make her point, Manickchand pointed out that McDonald was quoted as saying “The teachers strike continues and the Guyana Teachers’ Union has said the nation’s educators had received more under the People’s Progressive Party than what they currently get under this coalition administration.”
She reminded that McDonald had said that it was “under the PPP teachers for the first time received additional benefits apart from a salary increase.”
