WITH General and Regional Elections on the horizon, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s (PPP/C’s) presidential candidate, Irfaan Ali, has begun touting a manifesto which includes ‘free tertiary education for all Guyanese’ when it was his party that introduced fees to the University of Guyana (UG) back in 1994.

In the Saturday, September 14, 2019 Edition of the Guyana Times, Ali, in an article, promised to “give out 20,000 online scholarships.”

The fraud-accused presidential candidate explained that free university education would not be available from day one if the PPP/C Government is elected but would take some two to three years to allow for the party to “work out the details of this policy initiative.”
According to the PPP/C’s General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo, the party’s manifesto, which also includes a “loan write-off”, will be launched closer to the date of elections.

SEE-SAW MOTIONS
In contrast to the party’s recent vigour for free education, the history of the University of Guyana shows that the very political party responsible for introducing fees at the university is the one now seeking to remedy it.

The history section of the UG’s website, states that when the university opened its doors on October 2, 1963, its annual tuition fee was $100 but it was later abolished.
In 1976, under former President Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, all schools of the government were made free from nursery to university and this was enshrined as a right within the 1980 Constitution.

Article 27 of the Constitution states: “Every citizen has the right to free education from nursery to university as well as at non-formal places where opportunities are provided for education and training.”

Burnham reinforced the basis of universal primary and secondary education and moved tertiary education from being the privilege of an élite few to an entitlement for everyone.
As Guyana’s first Prime Minister and Executive President and founder of the People’s National Congress (PNC), he believed that public education was the cornerstone of social justice.

He had announced in a broadcast to the nation: “Education is the cornerstone of equality and one of the chief instruments for the abolition of snobbery and the removal of discrimination.”

However, it wasn’t until the 1994-1995 academic year, while the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan was president, that the university introduced a Cost Recovery Programme and free tertiary education ended.

This meant that resident Guyanese students were now required to pay G$127,000 per annum while the fees were higher for non-resident Guyanese and foreign students.
The payment of fees was higher for those pursuing studies in Law, Medicine, Nursing and Tourism, where the fees were $300,000, $500,000, $251,000 and $158,000 respectively.

The University of Guyana Students’ Society (UGSS) was one group which vehemently protested against the introduction of the tuition fees and still does so to date.
Added to this, during the PPP/C’s 23 years of power, the University of Guyana, according to government sources, faced numerous issues such as leaking roofs, furniture shortages, and complaints of no money being available.

In turn, the then government enforced large student loans which were not reinvested into the university’s development over the years.

In 2013, Kaieteur News reported the strike action of the university staff members who cried out in protest of issues such as no access to drinking water because of the lack of petty cash as well as non-payments of all deductions for social security, credit union, pension, income tax and insurance.

“The University doesn’t have money; it doesn’t even have money to run its departments. There are some departments that don’t even have water. Not even a leaky roof is fixed because no funds are available to purchase basic materials. Even repairs to computers and purchase of ink and paper cannot be done because of lack of funding,” one staff lamented.
On Saturday, in another see-saw motion, Ali outlined that a PPP/C Government back in power would “peruse plans to have all outstanding loans written off”.

FREE EDUCATION: AN ENTITLEMENT
Earlier this year, advocate for free tertiary education, Elson Lowe, cited in the media recent reports from the Guyana National Bureau of Statistics (GNBS) of only 2.3 per cent of Guyana’s population being in possession of a bachelor’s degree; this is significantly low compared to developed countries.

Lowe has written President David Granger who, on Emancipation Day this year, made known his intention to restore the right to free education, in accordance with the Constitution.

“My brothers and sisters, every citizen, every Guyanese has a right to education. This is a basic entitlement of all of us, all of our children. Free education is an entitlement mandated by our constitution which states ‘every citizen has the right to free education from nursery to university’,” he said.

“Our expected petroleum revenues, apart from what would be devoted to our Sovereign Wealth Fund, will help us to restore education in accordance with our Constitution. Those resources belong to future generations and future generations will benefit and profit from being educated. This would be an educated nation… Petroleum is not to enrich a few; it is to educate the many. Let that be understood that those resources belong to future generations and future generations will profit from being educated… We are not making fun with education… there is no better way to spend our petroleum resources than to ensure that Guyana becomes a nation of educated people. Guyana must become the best-educated country in the English speaking Caribbean,” the President added.
Several students of UG, days later, welcomed the President’s pledge for a return of free education to the country.

“We applaud the President for upholding the rights of all Guyanese, in particular Guyana’s youth and we look forward to presenting our proposals regarding how the university can be made once more a free institution,” Lowe, too, stated in response to the President’s commitment.

Later, on August 6, 2019, at the 34th death anniversary of former President Burnham hosted at Place of Heroes, President Granger vowed that the Burnham’s legacy of free public education will be re-birthed.

“Forbes Burnham gave effect to free public education by expanding opportunities for all…he entrenched free education as an entitlement in the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana,” he stated.
The President said that the former President built modern multilateral schools in Pomeroon-Supenaam at Anna Regina, Demerara-Mahaica, and Mahaica-Berbice, East Berbice-Corentyne at New Amsterdam and Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice regions and Georgetown.

“They still stand today as monuments and testimony to his commitment to regional public education…he built community high schools and technical institutes, opened the first campus of the University of Guyana and the Cyril Potter College of Education at Turkeyen, all with the aim of providing the best education for the post-Independence generation,” said the President.
Meanwhile, President Granger, through a programme started in observance of his birthday a few years ago, crafted the 5Bs Programme which sets out to provide free boats, buses, bicycles, breakfast and books to increase school-attendance which translates to better-educated students.

Thus far, the scheme has provided 1,400 bikes, 29 buses and 10 boats have been donated across the country under the programme allowing thousands more children in rural areas to freely attend school.