Minister of Education Priya Manickchand on Friday denounced the former APNU+AFC coalition administration for abandoning education sector projects, while saying that it failed learners and teachers by not preparing a plan for both to engage amidst the coronavirus outbreak.
Instead, Manickchand told the National Assembly, it was up to the PPP/C to come up with a solution in a short time. She said that while the solution is far from perfect, it’s more than the opposition had done.
She then spoke about school renewal and upgrade projects initiated to supply the nation’s learners.
“Under the APNU+AFC the country went without an education sector plan,” the Education Minister said. She further said that the opposition had made many excuses to keep the education sector from developing. “For the first time after 1993, this country went without an education sector plan published,” she added. “For all the years the PPP/C has been in office there has been a functioning sector plan. The first five years the APNU went into power the country went without a sector plan.”
Manickchand referred to the loans from the World Bank which were to be used for the secondary education system, where schools were to be built at Golden Grove, La Parfaite Harmonie, and Yarrow-kabra. She said that an entire generation of students did not get to use these facilities as they are yet to be completed. It is indefensible and unacceptable, she added, for the opposition to sit in the Parliament objecting to the budget 2020 when in five years nothing was completed, even with plans and money provided for before it got into office.
Manickchand then turned her attention to the St Rose’s High School rebuilding project which faced many delays and setbacks during the period that it was supposed to be constructed. Two years later it is yet to be finished. “Shame on you for defending the condition the projects were left in,” she said in a reprimand to the opposition. She reminded that the coalition continuously speaks about caring for the teachers and children but could not finish rebuilding the school, which the teachers and students need. Manickchand then warned that contractors would have to know that under the PPP/C administration, delays in completing projects will not be tolerated. She said that the coalition was deemed a caretaker government by the Caribbean Court of Justice and instead of proving this tittle wrong it sat back and left the projects for the now-sitting administration to complete.
Manickchand noted that other projects, such as the Guyana Learning Channel, were not being used to their full potential, especially at a time when it should have been resorted to, as in-class learning was no longer possible after March of this year. And instead of using these measures, the opposition while in power left the teachers with no direction and learners with no engagement, she argued.