– says education key to reducing social ills, fostering development

REPRESENTATIVE of the Guyana National Youth Council (GNYC), Dr Shonette Waterman, said the youth representative body is in full support of free education from the nursery to tertiary levels.

Speaking recently at a forum that sought to solicit views of young people on how to tackle youth unemployment, Waterman contended that some of the basic causes of unemployment include the lack of proper education.

“At the grassroot level, there are some persons who cannot complete secondary school because they have been struggling since primary school, and they may not have attained the grades necessary to get to a secondary school,” she said.

For this reason, she shared that the GNYC strongly believes that improved access to education will reduce unemployment and foster development of young people.

“Key on our list [of solutions to unemployment] is education, because we would have identified the lack of education as being one of the causes for unemployment,” Waterman said, adding: “Therefore, the GNYC stands for the principle that we should have free education from nursery to university in Guyana.”

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

This, however, is not always the case, as tertiary education is not free. Recently, an informal group of young people have banded together into what is called the “Free University of Guyana Movement”, to advocate for tertiary education, particularly at UG, to become free again.

Just this week, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo indicated that he strongly supports the idea of no tuition at the university, which will be effected if the coalition government is elected to a second term in office.

Waterman also noted that a common problem faced by persons who aspire to attain higher levels of education, is that they could have large sums of money to repay, after taking loans to fund their educational pursuits.

“Persons struggle to find the amount to repay the government, so we are standing on the principle of free education from nursery to tertiary,” she added.

To this end, Prime Minister Nagamootoo noted that currently, university students benefit from loans from a revolving fund that is repayable in 15 years after the students find jobs. In time, however, this fund should be converted into a grant in order for the new generation to benefit from oil and gas revenues.

Aside from UG, Waterman also noted that there must be focus on other areas of tertiary education such as Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET)

The GNYC representative also noted that while the Department of Youth has many TVET options available to provide educational opportunities for young people, there is an apparent lack of “visibility” of these programmes.

“How many young people can you reach on the road and ask them if they know about the services being offered? Do you know how you can get into it?” she asked, and pointed out that “the majority will say that they do not know what is going on, and as such, we have a problem with the visibility of the programmes.”

As such, she stressed that young people must be made aware of what opportunities are available for them.