PRESIDENT David Granger has been leading the charge to make this country an ‘education nation’ and his words have been matched by his deeds.

Recent announcement that his government intends to restore free education from nursery to university, which was stopped by the PPP administration and his daily charge for citizens to acquire an education speaks volume about his commitment to delivering this public good. At this week’s celebrations of Heritage Day at Riversview, Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice, President Granger returned to the subject in his speech, telling residents that education will equip not only the nation’s children, but those of Riversview with the knowledge and skills needed to transform the resources into riches and enable them to develop the economy and open opportunities for employment. He reminded that education is supported by the Public Education Transport Service (PETS or 5Bs) which is essential to school attendance. The provision of the school boat has resulted in significant reduction in ‘skulking’ and significant savings for parents who were paying more than $20,000 per month for one child to attend school in Bartica. “As long as I am President, you will never have to pay. You can now use those savings to improve the quality of life in your homes and villages. This Education Month is a very significant month for all of us because it is the pathway to development and the pathway to giving your children a better opportunity to succeed,” the President said.

Education has always been seen as a major means out of poverty, an opportunity to ascend the socio-economic ladder, to attracting the maxim “education makes a nation,” it is also deemed a fundamental right according to the United Nations and Guyana constitution. Ours is a society, where once only the so-called brightest child was allowed by the parents to pursue education, girls were kept back and the poor either never saw education as a necessity or just couldn’t afford it. In that same era not many had the benefit of primary and post-primary education, thereby nurturing a sense of elitism or privilege for those who had access, which was discriminatory in thinking and practice.

Knowledge is power and when so empowered, the sky is the limit. And though the earlier days of private education was only for those who could afford it or where religious organisations ran schools and being a student necessitated being a member of that community, the advent of universal public education in 1976 propelled the nation’s people as to their limitless possibilities. The universality in this approach set in train co-education and co-mingling of persons, irrespective of class, gender, race, creed or location.

Education not only became the great equaliser, it also set in train the nurturing of minds to respect and appreciate diversity, learning from each other, and valuing the importance of education to the people and nation’s development. As the PNC Government back then was pursuing the path of self-sufficiency and investing in its citizens’ education, making it free from nursery to university, at technical institutions, colleges and trade schools, to deny that the country was on a cusp to greater heights is to deny our sense of being and capabilities.
School buses/transportation, meals, uniforms, accommodation, and exercise and text books, the cost of which was borne by the government, toppled barriers to entry and learning. The economy, like all economies, experienced a down turn, aided in part by natural economic cycle, international factors such as oil price and scarcity of foreign exchange, and some would say management deficiencies and probably biting off more than we could chew at the time, such do not deny the fact of the boldness of our ambition and the audacity to create an educated nation.

Where efforts were made and are being made by government to remove hindrances to acquiring an education, particularly the basic by the re-institution of some, if not all of these, stated services are steps in the right direction. That for one reason or the other, when university education was no longer free and private education was returned, to deny that this direct cost to students was not felt is to ignore the economic reality of most, notwithstanding the felt importance to make the needed sacrifice to have the service. Bottom line is, education, be it private or public, should not be prohibitive. This also suggests that providers of this service, be they not-for-profit or for-profit, should seek not to be exploitative and or create a new class where only the wealthy can access.