To boost the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at the New Amsterdam Multilateral School, President David Granger yesterday contributed a sum of $1M.
While presenting a cheque to Head Teacher, Ms. Vanessa Jacobs, the President told the students that regional education is an investment in children’s future. He said it will equip them with the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes necessary to secure employment and to provide for their families.
The Head of State reminded that education, from nursery to university, was provided free of cost since 1976, adding that the right to free education is entrenched as an entitlement in the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, the country’s supreme law.
Additionally, the President said the revenues earned from the country’s petroleum production will not be squandered but will be deployed, primarily, to provide a first-class education for children.
“Free education is an entitlement…Free university education will be restored during the Decade of Development. No Guyanese child will have to pay for education at the University of Guyana,” he assured. The President has announced that the forthcoming decade will be Guyana’s Decade of Development.
According to him, “Education is not just a job for the government”, but is the obligation of the family, the school and the community or village. “I want to see the day when every
village has a school,” he said, adding that efforts will be made during the Decade of Development to achieve this.
“The Decade of Development will ensure that every child is enrolled in school; every child attends school regularly, every child graduates from school and every child is supported in
his or her education,” the President said.
Further, he said, the Decade of Development will promote STEM education in order to better equip students for the knowledge-based societies of the future. In this light, he added, there must be a corps of teachers committed to providing quality education to children.
Even as he described education as a most important public service, the President went on to note that it is a public good that is essential to the development of the country’s regions. He
noted too that Guyana’s regions must be strong if the country is to provide a ‘good life’ to its citizens.
