TO ensure development, a country must necessarily invest in programmes that will bear fruit in the future; educating the nation’s next generation is one key undertaking within that category. However, simply, haphazardly dumping resources into educational programmes, as the previous PPP regime had done, will not work. Instead, a methodical approach is required. A visionary leadership must accurately evaluate current shortcomings, correctly identify trends, properly predict future conditions, and implement a comprehensive agenda that is designed to guarantee continuous progress in a fast-evolving world.

Fortunately, since May 2015, Guyana’s coalition government under the visionary leadership of President David Granger has conceptualised and implemented a disciplined and meticulously well-organised system of educating Guyana’s next generation. This is particularly noteworthy as the APNU+AFC government had inherited a country in which the young residents of the various regions have widely varying educational needs, generally inadequate or inappropriate facilities, diverse living conditions, cultures, languages, customs, and other factors. As such, the Granger administration had to quickly and accurately assess the varied requirements and implement programmes tailored to the requirements of mostly dissimilar communities.

This was no easy task since even within any particular community, students will necessarily have different aptitudes, interests, and abilities. And, in the interest of Guyana, all of those must be optimally used.

In assessing Guyana’s children’s educational requirements, President Granger did not sit in an office and do guesswork; he went into the field and met the people, he spoke to parents, and he observed conditions on the ground. The result was a tailored educational agenda that the Ministry of Education was tasked with effecting.
Results speak for themselves.

The 5Bs initiative was launched by President Granger after His Excellency visited the Pomeroon in July 2015. During his interactions with residents, the president learned that there was often a high cost of transportation for children to get to and from school; many families could not afford it. Additionally, because of widespread, extreme poverty, many parents could not afford to purchase books for their children. Even more saddening, many children stayed home because their families could not afford proper meals. The president decided to take action by introducing the programme to distribute the 5Bs – which stand for boats, buses, bicycles, breakfast and books – directly to households and communities across Guyana, beginning in Pomeroon-Supenaam. As a result, the riverine communities within that region were among the first to benefit from the initiative with the delivery of three boats that transport children to and from school along the Pomeroon River.
The programme has since expanded to include all of Guyana’s regions. To date, more than 1,400 bicycles, 10 boats, and 30 busses have been handed over to students and communities across Guyana. The Breakfast and books aspects of the programme have also been introduced in numerous schools.

The Ministry of Education reports that the programme has been a phenomenal success, as all of the communities which have benefitted so far have shown a notable increase in school attendance.

The president recognises too that technical or vocational education is essential for national progress. The skilled citizens who are required to build a prosperous nation are not limited to doctors and lawyers. International expert-agencies agree. According to the World Bank’s 2019 World Development Report on the future of work, “Flexibility between general and vocational [or technical] education, particularly in higher education, is imperative to enable workers to compete in changing labour markets where technology plays an increasingly important role.” The importance of technical and vocational educational training (TVET) is recognised too by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In fact, TVET is one of the three subsectors of UNESCO, the other two being literacy and higher education.

Guyana’s government understands the importance of having skilled craftsmen and women, and TVET is an integral part of the administration’s educational focus. TVET is a major aspect of Guyana’s Education Sector Plan (ESP), in which the government has invested $214 billion. The plan’s objective is the improvement of the quality of education by placing greater emphasis on accountability through continuous monitoring of results throughout the plan’s active period.

Government’s investment is already showing positive results. For example, in November of last year, 123 students graduated from the New Amsterdam Technical Institute (NATI). This development follows the graduation of 144 students who received their diplomas from the Essequibo Technical Institute earlier that month. Those persons, along with others who have completed their technical education, have rightfully earned our respect and are to be congratulated.

Those graduates are now qualified in the areas of data operations, office administration, electrical installation, commerce, welding, engine repair, furniture manufacturing, agricultural machinery, metal machining, electronics, masonry, plumbing, bricklaying, and carpentry, among other skills.

Visionary leadership has identified other needs as well. As the rest of the world refocuses its developmental agendas to meet the new challenges which the information and technology age will bring, Guyana too must do the same. With that in mind, government, in collaboration with local and overseas-based Guyanese, has thrown its efforts behind one of the most visionary programmes ever conceived: the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiative.

The STEM initiative encourages elementary and middle school students to pursue computer science, particularly computer programming, by introducing them to code logic. As the STEM programme continues to grow, expand, and diversify, there are now practical training programmes for physics, chemistry, integrated science and information technology among others. With a core focus on developing practical programming, robotics, and scientific skills, the programme is preparing our youth, in all Guyana’s regions, to lead Guyana into the new technological era.

The need for visionary leadership in the education sector would be obvious to all intelligent Guyanese. Therefore, we should not take the risk of putting the future wellbeing of our children into the hands of unproven people of dubious qualification. We already have a leader whose vision is being made into reality; the administration’s record in fewer than four years speaks for itself. President Granger’s vision of an educated nation must be allowed to progress to full fruition.