Education Minister Priya Manickchand and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) parliamentarian Amna Ally locked horns on Monday on the budgetary allocation for the education sector.
Ally told the House that the 2012 budget was a reinforcement of “figures with no meaning”, recounting that Gy$ 24.3 billion have been spent on the National Strategic Plan (NSP), Gy$ 919 million spent on producing trained teachers by 2013 and Gy$ 769 million spent on the University of Guyana, but there has been no real development.
She called on Manickchand to produce the list of schools that have received computer labs from funding through the strategic plan. The NSP states that 80 secondary and 60 primary schools are equipped with computer labs.
Ally noted that this cannot be, as “a computer lab cannot be a school with two computers”. She continued that in Region 10 at least five of the schools were not properly equipped, as “the equipment are not functional, because the complete systems are not available; rather in some schools the computers are still in boxes”. Ally noted that it was not only the primary and secondary schooling systems that were failing but the University of Guyana (UG) and the vocational colleges as well. Ally stated that the 5500 students who graduate from UG annually could not pay the proposed tripling of university fees. Ally noted that it is unreasonable to increase fees yet deny improvements in regard to quality lectures and infrastructure.
“There are too many problems, staffers, management, UG council, people losing their jobs because of their political affiliation,” she said, stating these were all issues affecting UG’s ability to effectively produce students who would be prepared for the working world.
APNU MP Amna Ally
The shadow education minister asked that the government show where the money that has been allocated over the years has gone, noting that the vast majority of issues shows that the government has been unable to deliver on promises.
Ally took time to focus her energy on a few direct examples that she claimed could easily be addressed. She cited that Region Two children in the Lower Pomeroon were being “deprived of a secondary education, because the government cannot make adequate transportation arrangement for those children” to travel to Charity where the secondary school is located. Ally said the bureaucracy in the system is partially to blame.
“What bothers me is that when you highlight problems you are told that it is not central ministry, it is the RDC or Local Government Ministry” who has the executive powers. Like many opposition members before her, Ally called for transparency and accountability. In her presentation, Minster Manickchand stated that Guyana’s low CSEC results in Math and English were not as bad as the opposition was trying to project. “It is not news we doing bad in Maths. This country has a history of doing bad in Mathematics; it has a history of doing bad in English,” Manickchand stated, “but for the past two decades both math and English scores have elevated to double digits.”
Manickchand gave comparative statistics from regional counterparts noting that in 2011, when Guyana’s Mathematics pass rate was at 30 per cent, the Dominican Republic reported 34 per cent passes, Jamaica 33 per cent. The minister noted that the current 2012 budget allotment was geared towards addressing the insufficiencies in Mathematics and English.
Additionally, the minster stated that universal primary education was achieved in Guyana and that to say no development has occurred is a discredit to the 300,000 students and 10,000 teachers within Guyana.
Manickchand stated that as of 2012, 70 per cent of nursery teachers and 67 per cent of primary school teachers are adequately trained, refuting the opposition’s claim that no training and development has been done. The minster even noted that in regions such as Region Two there is an excess of qualified teachers who will be dispersed to other areas where there may be deficiencies.
The education minister explained that in regards to the learning channel and the National Strategic Plan there has been multiple successes. She cited that the Learning Channel is in its second year of programming and it needs to be given additional care to become fully realised.
