“Guyana needs you!” This was Minister Cathy Hughes’ message to 26 first and second year Computer Science students from the University of Guyana (UG) Tain Campus who paid her a courtesy call yesterday at Colgrain House. She and the students discussed careers “that make sense” in today’s highly digitised world.
She familiarised them with the most important parts of the MOPT’s national programme which is aimed at: ensuring that citizens are at least computer literate; providing them with FREE access to the Internet in community centers, churches, benabs, post offices, schools and other meeting places in rural and inland communities all across the country; and putting public services online and within easy reach, such as NIS inquiries, applications for birth and death certificates, business licenses, and other tax-related requirements.
She also spoke about the most important reasons for the Ministry’s expansive outreach and training programmes that target primary and secondary school students and out-of school youths; and the need for close collaboration with local IT developers and entrepreneurs. Among those reasons, she said, is government’s obligation to produce a cadre of highly skilled Guyanese who will be capable of working with advanced computer software and, along the way, developing their own apps and programmes in this soon-to-be oil and gas economy.
“Guyana is moving up and our people have to be ready,” she asserted, while offering the students her Ministry’s assistance in whatever form they require.
