– new Digital School, Int’l Biodiversity Centre to be established
In keeping with its 2020 Manifesto promise, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government will be rolling out free tuition at the University of Guyana (UG) from January 2025.
This was revealed by President Dr Irfaan Ali on Thursday when he delivered his second address to the 12th Parliament.
During the special sitting of Parliament, the Head of State announced the free tertiary education for existing and future students of the University of Guyana.
“We’ll be proceeding with the delivery of our Manifesto commitment to provide free university education at the University of Guyana… This House should understand the importance of education and the transformative nature of education, and we must send that signal loudly to every corner of this country… Accordingly, starting from January 2025, semester, tuition fees will be completely abolished at the University of Guyana,” he declared.
According to President Ali, this initiative will continue his administration’s advancement of the country’s human capital especially the young generation and their families who will benefit from the tuition-free tertiary education.
In excess of 11,000 current students of UG are set to benefit from this measure along with all future entrants. The Guyanese Leader noted that this initiative will cost the treasury some $18 billion. “The future belongs to all of these young people,” he asserted.
In keeping with the PPP/C Government’s policy of making tertiary education free in the country, some $203.7 million in student loans have already been written off by the State. This debt write-off benefitted approximately 346 students.
President Ali added that it is expected that approximately $5 billion in student debt at UG could be written off by this year-end and $18 billion in the entity of this debt wipeout.
This is just one of a series of measures announced by the Head of State on Thursday ranging from minimum wage increase for public sector employees, tax relief for parents, healthcare benefits, and investment incentives for poultry farmers, among others.
In fact, since assuming office in 2020, the PPP/C Administration has been implementing a sleuth of relief measures including those promised in its 2020 Manifesto as well as new initiatives that have been critical to cushioning the rising cost of living. This, according to President Ali, is unlike what played out during the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Coalition’s term in office which was characterized by broken and unfulfilled promises coupled with the imposition of hardships – all of which the current administration has worked to reserve over the years.
“My government’s term in office has been characterised by tireless efforts to bring relief to the Guyanese people and to improve every aspect of the lives of the Guyanese people… We did all of this in just four years, recalling that we lost almost two of those four years to COVID-19, two to floods, a drought and a global supply chain crisis. We managed to deliver all of this under those circumstances. This is a government of efficiency and delivery,” he reiterated.
Guyana Digital School
Nevertheless, as part of the government’s drive to enhance education delivery across the country, the Head of State also spoke about efforts to advance and innovate education delivery through the establishment of a digital school.
“The government is moving to establish the Guyana Digital School to create a new and innovative learning environment for our students across the country, giving every child the same access to the same quality of teaching and material. The Digital School will be resourced like any Brick-and-Mortar facility, with the added benefit of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support the learning process,” he noted.
This new digital school, according to the President, will be equipped with the entire curriculum from the nursery to Grade 12 levels including all textbooks and teaching materials. It will also have online tutors, AI to review assessments and generate development reports, online PTA meetings, and online extracurricular activity.
Moreover, it will also cater to teaching entrepreneurial real-life skills and cultural classes as well as an electronic nursing and accounting school, remedial education in the evenings for adults, and all the current assessments for NGSA and CXC.
Additionally, this Guyana Digital School will also serve the Caribbean region, President Ali stated.
“In fulfilling our promise of ensuring our prosperity must rebound to the prosperity of this Caricom (Caribbean Community) region, this Guyana Digital School will also be available for CARICOM citizens,” the Guyanese Leader added.
Already, the Guyana Government has brought digital education to the local population through initiatives such as the One Guyana Digital Initiative, where more than 2000 Guyanese are focused on front-end and back-end technology with job placement opportunities on the completion of free training.
In addition, the Guyana Coders Initiative is targeting 150,000 Guyanese while the Guyana Coursera platform, which was launched in March 2024, now gives some 400,000 citizens free access to 6,000 courses, costing the treasury US$1.4 million annually.
Further, more than 29,000 online scholarships have been granted to Guyanese through the PPP/C Government’s flagship GOAL programme, which has received an injection of some $2.9 billion in the last three years. Of the 29,000 beneficiaries of the GAOL scholarship initiative, a whopping 21,000 are women.
Int’l Biodiversity Centre
Meanwhile, President Ali also outlined that climate and biodiversity are key aspects of the future as his government work on building out this new economy in Guyana. He noted that the revised Low Carbon Development Strategy 2030 (LCDS 2030) focuses on creating a global model for recognizing the essential role of tropical forests in the fight against climate change and biodiversity conservation.
To this end, the Head of State disclosed that his government has engaged the prestigious Harvard University and Oxford University in the establishment of an International Centre for Biodiversity.
“The focus of such a Centre will be to support Guyana’s effort in protecting and restoration of critical ecosystem, expansion of Guyana’s offering for natural-based solutions beyond carbon, and advancing Guyana’s progress towards the global target of conserving at least 30 per cent of the planet’s lands and ocean by 2030,” he stated.
According to the Guyanese Leader, the next phase of technical work on sustainable urban development, water management and biodiversity conservation will be complete in early 2025 and will pave the way for further stakeholder engagement and consultation.
This is in keeping with Guyana’s calls for a global coalition focused on advancing biodiversity conservation. This will be supported by the launch of the Global Biodiversity Alliance (GBA) summit in the first quarter of 2025, which President Ali announced last month at the 79th United Nations General Assembly.
The Alliance’s areas of focus would be creating a market for biodiversity credits, scaling biodiversity conservation debt swaps, accelerating biodiversity bonds, a blueprint for biodiversity taxonomies, and promoting nature positive action.
“The Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University will be working with the GBA to help develop the financing models and mechanisms envisioned… The vision of the Global Biodiversity Alliance is to unite large stakeholders, worldwide, in a concerted effort to preserve and restore biodiversity for future generations by fostering collaboration across sectors and regions, I’m pleased to advise you… that Guyana is taking the lead in the Global Biodiversity Alliance,” President Ali stated. (G-8)
