MINISTER of Social Cohesion Dr. George Norton and Minister of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Sydney Allicock on Friday morning commissioned two schools in Region Nine (Upper Takutu/Upper Essequibo).

Speaking at the commissioning of the Achawib Nursery School, which will cater to 28 first and second year nursery school children, Minister Norton said that the activity was testament to the government’s commitment to ensuring every child in the country has access to education. In addition to the construction of a brand new nursery school, the government also renovated the building that houses the Achawib Primary School, the population of which is 163 pupils.

As Minister Norton explained, the government saw the need to construct a separate building for the nursery school, as the children were previously housed in the same building as the primary school. He said the government wanted to ensure that the children, both primary and nursery, had their own space to learn and grow.

Touching on the other efforts the APNU+AFC government would have made since taking office to ensure that children countrywide were afforded every opportunity to learn, Dr. Norton said, “We tried to help some of them with their transportation, because some children could not go to school because they had no boat to take them.

Mr. Granger, your president, promised to give boats, and he has given ten so far, in all the main rivers in this country, be it Aruka, Pomeroon, Essequibo, Demerara, the Corentyne, wherever… We are giving them boats to go to school; we also gave them buses. We gave ten buses right across the country, and for those who don’t have roads to go on or the boats, we handed out bicycles.” Noting that he still had more business to attend to while in Region Nine on this occasion, Minister Norton said, “Saturday, I am going to go to a village called Shirriri, where I’m going to distribute bicycles to the students there.”

IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION
And stressing the importance of education to the development of a nation, Dr. Norton, who besides being a politician, is an Ophthalmologist by profession, said: “We have given, so far, over 1500 bicycles to students so that they can come to school. We’re doing all of this, implementing all of these systems, because we want all of the children in the country to get a good education, because we believe that education is the key to development.”
Noting that the government, since taking office back in 2015, has been able to reduce the number of primary school dropouts “from “1600 to a mere ‘600”, Minister Norton went on to explain that it was even able to redouble its efforts to sustain the school-feeding programme, which, when it took over had close to 3000 children being fed daily to the nearly 20,000 it now caters to.

VOTE OF THANKS
Toshao of Achawib, Vanessa Richards lauded the government’s commitment to their

community, saying she is happy to have the government’s support, in not just the form of a building to house the children, but also for providing a facility that is well equipped, and allows the children access to modern washroom facilities as well as running water.
She also lauded the government for what she described as making significant strides towards ensuring that the children of the village have every opportunity to be successful in their educational pursuits.
She explained that in addition to the construction of the new building and renovating the old one, the government also made sure that the roads were done so as to allow for easy access to the schools.

BITTER-SWEET MOMENT
District Education Officer (DEO) Johnson Boston, called the commissioning “a bitter-sweet moment” for residents of the community. “For some reason,” he said, “Achawib has in most cases been neglected until recent times. And on behalf of Region One, I want to say a special thank you to the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region Nine, and by extension the Government of Guyana for giving Achawib the kind of attention that it deserves.”

Minister Allicock, while addressing the residents of Bashaizon, said, “We need young people to help us build… Every single Guyanese will have a chance to help Guyanese be united.”
Adding that students have better opportunities today than ever before, Minister Allicock reminded residents that Guyana needs a range of professional specialists to move Guyana forward, and called for residents to combine their local knowledge of flora and fauna with their formal education to produce even better graduates of the Region.

Both schools are equipped with solar panels that will provide electricity to the school building, running water, and modernized washroom facilities.