PRESIDENT David Granger, on Thursday, August 1, committed his Coalition to the restoration of free education from nursery to university. He made the announcement at activities to observe the 181st anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Guyana and the Anglophone Caribbean.

We commend the president for taking this bold initiative in an area of national life that has become a cause for concern. That he chose Emancipation Day to make the formal announcement is most instructive. If there is a moment in the country’s historical journey that embodies education as a form of social uplift and advance, it is Emancipation. As the president pointed out, “Emancipation means Independence and Emancipation means education.”

The linkage of independence to education is most apt and profound. If one views freedom from bondage as a significant blow for independence, then the emancipation of the enslaved in 1838 must have been pregnant with possibilities for human advance of which education is a necessary ingredient. Again, the president was on target when he observed that education was central to the freed people unlocking opportunities to free them from inter-generational poverty. As he argued: “Once you break that cycle through education, educated people will have educated children and the world will progress.”

In other words, education was on the minds of the formerly enslaved who were denied access to it by law. It was, therefore, no accident that one of their first collective act was to erect schools in the villages they founded and funded immediately after emancipation. Despite modernization and other forms of human progress, education has remained a central plank of progress for the least among us.

In that regard, the president’s reference to education as a constitutional right is also on the ball. The framers of the constitution were obviously cognizant of the importance of embedded liberative policies in turning back equally embedded oppressive policy. It was immoral to deny human beings the human right to education and it was moral to enshrine it in the constitution. In locating his policy announcement within the ambit of the highest law of the land, the president ensures that free education from nursery to university is not construed as a political handout, but as a human right. Again, the president’s words tell the story: “I want us to go back to the time where every village had a school… schools must be convenient, schools must be accessible…I want to see a country with 100 per cent primary education.”

This publication wishes to reinforce the timeliness of this announcement. It is a positive and proactive response to the social unevenness that has developed as a result of uneven access to quality education. If education is a force for social uplift and advance, then access to it is necessary. Those who are old enough to remember the first implementation of free education for all by the first post-independence government could attest to its effect on the process of social mobility and equality. The sons and daughters of the poor, many of whom are in positions of authority and influence today, can trace their social mobility to this era.
We can also trace the current decline in the educational outcomes among the majority of the population to the discontinuation of free education. The effect was most evident among the poor who could not afford the high cost of lessons and private education. President Granger is on record as bemoaning the “education apartheid” that currently is the rule rather than the exception. This announcement, then, is the actualization of a promise made by the president and his coalition. In an age when it is commonplace for political leaders and parties to ignore campaign promises upon attaining office, this announcement must be commended.

Finally, it should be noted that the president tied this new initiative to the coming of the Oil and Gas economy. While there would obviously be competition for the use of the expected wealth, he was clear that education would be at the top of the list. As he intoned: “Oil will produce profits and those profits will go first and foremost into education.” In that regard, he also announced that education would be at the peak of his “Decade of Development.” He was crystal clear about his intentions: “Decade of Development for all, which will begin in 2020 and last until 2029…will prioritise education since it is an entitlement and a right for all people.”

Take a bow, Mr. President—you deserve it. History would be kind to you for reviving hope in a brighter future for Guyana.