Jagdeo says Gov’t focused on educating, upskilling all Guyanese

Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo emphasised that the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) government is focused on educating and upskilling Guyanese and has been doing so through new programmes like the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) scholarship venture.

Jagdeo’s statements were made at a party press conference on Thursday, in response to allegations from opposition politician Vincent Alexander.

Alexander, in a letter to the editor, alleged that the government closed night schools in Sophia and Kildonan. In her own letter to the editor, Education Minister Priya Manickchand clarified that those night schools were not run by the government; the school in Sophia, for one, was run by a non-governmental group called the Sophia Community Development Association (SOCDA).

Jagdeo also told reporters that those schools were not government-run. He said both schools were private ventures.

“I didn’t even know they existed… but we are open to supporting these schools if they do good work in the communities,” Jagdeo said at the press conference.

The Vice President didn’t only respond to the claims that the government closed the schools. He also addressed insinuations that those false closures were meant to deny educational opportunities to Afro-Guyanese.

According to him, the government has been pursuing a robust scholarship programme- GOAL- that has provided educational opportunities to more than 25,000 people.

And for those people without the requisite qualifications for GOAL certificate and degree programmes, another venture called Get Ready for Opportunities to Work (GROW) was developed. This is a second chance program where students can acquire the General Education Development (GED) and the Scottish Certificate and Qualification Framework (SCQF).

Of the more than 5,800 people benefitting from GOAL, Jagdeo said 3,000 are Afro-Guyanese. Further, he said about 366 beneficiaries are from Sophia.