–Health Minister announces, as gov’t continues to pursue efforts to enhance human resource capabilities
OVER 800 persons have already enrolled in the Nursing Assistant Programme on the Guyanese Coursera platform, which was launched last Friday by the Government of Guyana.
This announcement was made by Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony during his address at the launch.

“Today is another important day apart from launching the Coursera platform. We spent time with our partners from Mount Sinai to curate and develop Nursing Assistant Courses based on the programmes available on Coursera. That programme is going to last for one year, and we have already recruited more than 800 people,” he said.

This announcement stands in unison with the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government’s commitment to modernising the education sector and also bridging the digital gap.
He went on to say: “In Guyana, we have three nursing schools, but our total output for the registered nursing programme is approximately 200 to 250 persons per year, and this is a three-year programme.

We felt that if we were going to scale up training because of the expansion in the health sector, we had to find another innovative way to train nurses, and so one of the things that we decided on was to implement a hybrid programme. We were looking for partnerships on how to execute a hybrid programme, and then we found that Coursera already had a format.”

The minister then went on to say that since the crafting of the Registered Nursing Programme, over 1,000 nurses have registered and commenced their training.
He further said that training for these nurses will be conducted for three years and upon completion of the theoretical aspects, they will be placed at simulation centres across the country.

Moreover, in his feature address, President Dr Irfaan Ali gave some insight into the type of system the PPP/C Government met with when it assumed office in August, 2020.

He said: “You’ve heard that we came into office at the onset, almost the onset of COVID. With nothing in place, not only was the health sector ill-prepared…to deal with COVID, we did not have a single bed prepared to deal with COVID… but the education sector was also not prepared in any way, shape or form to deal with the consequential effect of COVID.”
Owing to “carefully articulated” policies crafted by the PPP/C administration, this allowed education to be delivered in every corner of the country.

Moreover, according to him, Guyana stands out as one of the few countries globally, that did not have a structural regression in its education system during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Ali continued to reflect on how the PPP/C administration has lifted Guyana off of its feet and placed it on the path to prosperity.

He said: “But let me make this very clear. Three years ago…Minister Manickchand will recall that we shared a forum, when I said that we will deliver first world, first-class education in this country. But that is not all that we said. We said we will deliver first-class, first-world education accessible to every citizen of this country. Today, we can celebrate the accomplishment of this vision.”

Even with attempts by detractors of development to cast doubt on this goal, the Head of State said that his government stayed committed to the task.
“I say every day, let our results do the talking, lock away the noise and let the results do the talking,” President Ali told the large crowd.

Expounding on the plans that will take Guyana to the next level, Dr Ali said: “We are now looking to position Guyana as the main hub for Latin America and the Caribbean, for Coursera and what we have to offer in this region, to do this. We have to work on building a diversified platform that will cater for all languages and all requirements of the region.”