Former Education Minister Priya Manickchand is questioning whether the real reason the Government has taxed private education is because President David Granger believes there is education apartheid in Guyana.
Granger, as Opposition Leader in 2013, said education delivery in Guyana was akin to ‘apartness’, another form of ‘apartheid’, and “we must avoid and avert the danger of children being separated along lines of gender, social class or geographical location”.
Manickchand, speaking to reporters, pondered if Government imposed the burdensome tax on private education so as to limit the number of children who access quality services from private institutions.
“I have a question for Mr Granger; his view was that a certain set of children were accessing, a certain ethnicity was accessing certain education. By now, he should have been disabused of that view, because everybody wants good for their children whether you’re black, you’re Indian, you’re Chinese, you’re Portuguese, you’re yellow, you’re pink or you’re blue; most people want their children to do better…So is that the reason they have now taxed private education, because he believed that a certain set of people only were accessing that?” she enquired.
Nonetheless, the former Education Minister posited that there was no education apartheid in Guyana and said the President should have used his time in office to inform himself that children from all backgrounds benefit from private education – in some cases at the cost of personal sacrifices.
Protests in various forms have erupted against the 14 per cent tax on private education and educational materials, since Government imposed the measure in its new tax regime in the 2017 National Budget.
Protests have taken the form of petitions and picketing actions outside the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) as well as the Finance Ministry.
In response to the outcry, President Granger maintained that the tax must remain on education because some private schools were not tax compliant.
Finance Minister Winston Jordan had also defended the decision to add the 14 per cent tax to the private school fees by contending that the public school system was always free.
He ignored the fact that the public school system, as admitted by Government Ministers, was not at the level which it should be in order to guarantee quality education delivery.
Additionally, he failed to assess the capacity of the public system to receive an influx of students who can no longer afford private education and would have to resort to the public sector.
Many stakeholders, including educators and students, have argued that taxing education was definitely not the way to go in modern society as education is the backbone of any developing country.
They questioned the Government’s logic to tax education, especially since President Granger peddled the rhetoric of wanting an educated nation to build and develop Guyana.
Joining the campaign, the former Education Minister called on the Government to remove the 14 per cent tax on education, noting that it would only result in Guyana regressing.
Source: https://guyanatimesgy.com/manickchand-questions-real-motive-behind-tax-on-education/