– GTUC President

PRESIDENT of the Guyana Trade Union Congress (GTUC), Coretta McDonald, has posited that free education will only serve to bring greater development to local communities, as she ledged the union’s support for making tertiary education free once again.

Recently, an informal group of young people have banded together into what is called the “Free University of Guyana Movement”, and have advocated for policymakers to ‘comply’ with the constitution by making UG free, as it was before. This, according to one advocate of the movement, Elson Lowe, is enshrined in Guyana’s constitution. Article 27 of the Constitution of Guyana states: “Every citizen has the right to a free education from nursery to university as well as at non-formal places where opportunities are provided for education and training.”

“What we’re saying is that we should abide by the constitution, and if the constitution articulates free education then we should have free education,” McDonald told the Guyana Chronicle in an invited comment.
Furthermore, she stressed that the GTUC supports making tertiary education- at UG and at other tertiary institutions- free because it will foster development in local communities. “The thing about it is that all of us are not on the same level and while I might be able to pay the large amounts to send my child to school, but what happens to my brother and my sister who can’t afford that?” she questioned.

“This would not only bring about more educated people, but it would bring about greater development in our communities,” she reasoned. “When we offer free education in every community then it is easier for us to manage what is happening in the community and then there will be no brain drain from one community to another.” According to statistics provided by the Bureau of Statistics, only 2.3 per cent of Guyana’s population has a bachelor’s degree. For developed countries, that figure stands at about 30 per cent. That means, as explained by Lowe, that Guyana is more than 10 times behind where it needs to be.

As such, McDonald opined free education means “making the playing field level” for all citizens whether they are residing on the coast or in the hinterland regions. McDonald, who is also the General Secretary of the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU), underscored: “The GTUC as well as the GTU fully endorses that move and we are hoping that it is not going to be just talks but we’ll have the implementation very soon.”

On May Day, General Secretary of the GTUC, Lincoln Lewis, called for some of Guyana’s expected oil revenues to be used to provide free education, in keeping with Guyana’s constitution. “We call for the provision of free education from nursery to university as enshrined in the Constitution and if the government and the Opposition believe in respecting this Constitution, then respect this one,” he said.

Coretta however opined that instead of waiting until 2020 for the oil revenues, policymakers should begin creating the avenues to make education free now. “In everything we’re talking about, we’re referring to the oil revenues, but the thing is if we don’t put systems in place from now, when we have the revenues from the oil then we will go elsewhere,” she said. “We need to start planning and put the plans in place now so when we get the revenues from oil, then we can channel them directly into that.”