…President Ramotar as he launches $10,000 education grant
IF ever a nation will grow, it must think long-term and focus on education and human capital. This is really the recurring focus for the PPP/C Administration, and it goes back to 1992, when the nation vested power in this incumbent. This twin-point was explained by President Donald Ramotar, who launched the $10,000 education grant on October 11 in Bartica, where the gratitude of the recipients was quite visible – smiles, and many words of support for the PPP/C.
It should be noted that this grant is not a sporadic, knee-jerk reaction from the PPP/C. It accompanies a host of other inputs in Guyana’s school children—the uniform voucher, the school feeding programme for some areas, the Hinterland Scholarship Programme and building and refurbishing over 1,000 schools. These investments stem from provision made in Budget 2014 for some 188,406 families, at a hefty cost of a $2B.
This ongoing venture is meant to provide more support to parents with school aged, and increase their disposable income as well. The overall objective is to raise enrollment number and attendance rates. The $10,000 grant is testimony yet again to the seriousness of the Government where education and human capital are concerned.
“… education is important, not only in itself, but it underpins every other sector of our society … so this programme that we doing here, we hope that it will help you to ensure that the kids stay in school, that they study and do not come out of school until they have a secondary education, so that they can take advantage of other Government programmes like scholarships to the University of Guyana and further, so that they can lift their development and make a greater contribution to the development of our society,” the President urged.
People still remember past times when education was not a priority. In fact, the PPP/C started in 1992, with a jump of eight percent of the National Budget going to the social sector, and at that time it was a very small budget. Now, Guyana has far bigger and more expansive budgets, where more than 30 percent is dedicated to the social sector and where education gets the largest of this allocation.
The rewarding thing is that all of this hard work and monetary inputs are paying massive dividends. Locally, the traditional schools of success have to now compete for top honours with places like Anna Regina and Line Path Secondary Schools. Also, at the Regional/Caribbean level, Guyana’s dominance is well documented having copped five out of eight top Regional CSEC spots in 2013.
What must not be forgotten is the fact that Guyana is riding a high in education right alongside some major movements in the world, namely the rise in advocacy for females to be educated. In this light, it is quite fitting that the Nobel Prize for Peace was just deservedly bestowed upon a ‘still’ secondary school student, Malala Yusufzai from Pakistan. She is the young lady, who stood up against terrorism where education is concerned. She was almost killed in her homeland by terrorist sub-planters, who shot her in a bus at point blank rage.
So with success stories of Guyana’s children, there is the belief that students here can and will make significant contributions to Guyana’s development, and that of the world by extension.
The Head of State explained that if any more evidence is needed of the deep philosophical belief of the PPP/Civic Government of the importance of human resources, then the education grant is another demonstration of this idealistic underpinning of the Administration.
The Bartica occasion also brought out a most telling point from the President. He tied education, human capital and natural resources with a single string. This kind of thinking is most vital if Guyana is to move from the status of ‘developing’ to fully ‘developed’ in terms of how nations are ranked.
The President said, “If we look around the world and look at countries that have prospered and countries that have been left behind, you would find that there are countries with enormous natural resources that still have unbelievable poverty and there are others with very little resources and they are prospering. And the reason is the investment that we put in our people. And that is why from the very beginning, we have been investing heavily in our people.”
“When we got into office, only about 30 percent of children leaving primary school went into secondary schools. Most of our children had to fail at their exams, at the end of their primary education, not because they were dunces; they had to fail because there was no provision for them in secondary schools at that time.”
The achievement of universal primary education and close to achieving universal secondary education are important for the future of the country, as both levels are the foundation of the people.
“It’s as if you are building a structure – you have to put a solid foundation on the ground to hold up the infrastructure, to hold up the superstructure that you will put on this base, and primary and secondary education offer that grounding, so that our children can aim not only to remain at that level, but they can go on to tertiary education at different levels in our society; and this Government is ensuring that not only children on the coastland will have that opportunity, but in the interior also.”
The Administration has built secondary schools in the interior areas with dormitories; and provides not only all the text books, but three meals a day so that parents will have no excuse to keep their children at home.
“Because if we speak about developing the interior of our country, which everyone says is important for the prosperity of Guyana, we have to have the human capital, we have to have the people capable of developing them and therefore these investments are important. Today you can go to the top of the mountain in Paramakatoi and find 700 students at secondary school, able to write the CXC exams, or you can go to the riverine area of Waramadong in this very region and you will find another secondary school with 700 students.”
Thus far the process of rebuilding has been great; it promises to get better. Why? The Government’s vision is that tomorrow’s success and prosperity are hinged upon Guyana’s children and their education.
Source: (GINA) http://guyanachronicle.com/2014/10/15/education-human-capital-crucial-to-national-development