A NUMBER of students from across the 10 administrative regions were presented with bursaries during the Burnham Education Scholarship Trust (BEST) 7th Annual Award Ceremony held recently at the Baridi Benab at State House.

His Excellency President David Granger presented the bursaries to the outstanding National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) and Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) students last Wednesday during the simple but significant event.
Delivering the keynote address, President Granger underscored the importance of education.

“Education, apart from food, a loving family, clothing, and shelter, is perhaps the most important part of your life, the most important thing that could happen to you as a child or a young person. Number one, it is the basis of equality; it is also the gateway to employment…So it’s important for you…to receive the benefits of education, nursery, primary, secondary, and eventually tertiary,” the Head of State told the awardees.

The President said his government remains committed to providing the highest level and the best quality of education to the people of Guyana. Under President Granger’s leadership, the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government plans to increase educational opportunities for all Guyanese, during what the President describes as ‘Decade of Development – 2020-2029.’

With oil and gas production on the horizon, President Granger told the awardees that profits from the fledgling petroleum industry will benefit the present and future generations. “You will inherit this country, the towns, the cities, the neighbourhoods, the hinterland communities; you will have to inherit this country and it is our duty as trustees to hand over to you a country that is in better shape than what we got from our parents; and this is one step in the right direction ,” he told the awardees.

President Granger also used the opportunity to share his vision of Guyana becoming a “Green State.” He noted that over 80 per cent of the country’s landscape is covered with forests – one of the highest rates of forest coverage in the world. Additionally, he is pushing for the country to become a “Digital State” as well.

“We are also becoming a digital state, every week, every month we extend telecommunications to different parts of the country, so that more and more children could access the internet and it is for this reason we changed the one laptop per family programme to one laptop per teacher programme. We have given out nearly 9000 laptops to teachers to enable them to teach you better and this is how we are digitizing the country,” he told the gathering.

The president added that no Guyanese child should drop out of school and that no Guyanese child needs to be afraid that he or she will not be able to complete his or her education.

His Excellency told the awardees to make full use of the BEST programme. “I would like to do more, it is just a bursary and I look forward to the time when we could provide all of your needs once you leave nursery school throughout secondary school into university,” he explained.

The Burnham Education Scholarship Trust was established in 2012 to continue the education-related work of Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, who had maintained an exceptional level of academic attainment and always emphasised the importance of education.