Home Letters Education sector has an important role to play in success of local...
Dear Editor,
I would like to express heartfelt appreciation to the Honourable Minister and the team at the Ministry of Natural Resources for allowing key stakeholders an opportunity to have their concerns heard before finalising the local content policy document.
I was part of a team that was invited to have open dialogue and discussion on some of the measures and policies that would potentially affect the education sector and, more importantly, the role of the sector in ensuring that Guyana, as a whole, benefits from our collective wealth that lies offshore.
I was made to understand that while local content policies have the potential to stimulate broad-based economic development, the use of specialised inputs and the technological complexities of the petroleum sector could impede our ability to develop backward and forward linkages in our economy. Indeed, this is contingent on our ability to quickly expand our educational sector, especially in the provision of certified training at both the vocational and technical levels. Failure to do so could see us, as a nation, not having the ability to quickly supply services. Hence, because of the fast-growing petroleum sector, supply bottlenecks could then be exacerbated due to an increase in aggregate final demand. Of course, this would ultimately affect employment and output trends in other sectors of the economy, create distortion and inefficiencies, and in some cases even promote corruption.
While these are certainly the kinds of outcomes we would not like to see manifested, I’m confident that this is the underlying reason why this Government would be expending this year in excess of Gy$60B in the education sector, and provide more than 4,500 scholarships. I think His Excellency the President must be commended for his visionary leadership!
At the end of the meeting, I was convinced that we in the education sector have an important role to play in the success of the local content policy drive, and, to a greater extent, in ensuring that the returns of the economic links created by our oil and gas sector are maximised; a perception of which prior to the engagement I was completely oblivious.
On this note, I urge all stakeholders to attend and have their voices and concerns heard.
Regards,
Elton Ford
