Govt’s free tuition initiative: Linden Technical Institute preparing for student influx – Principal

As eager students gear up to study for the 2025 new Student Free Year, the Linden Technical Institute (LTI) foresees an influx of students for which they are adequately prepared. This message was revealed in an interview with Principal of LTI.
According to Anthony, the relief by the President, which comes in 2025 for students, is not too far off from what students were initially receiving; however, it will greatly benefit some, as many are unable to pay the initial price, making it easier for them to join.

“So, even prior, you’ll find students paying a registration fee. The registration fee is nothing in comparison to the amount of money you actually have to spend on a student. The money that they used to be able to pay for registration as of September was like $6,000, Basically, they get a t-shirt, then they get the monogram, the badge, you know, and some fine things.”
He further expounded on practical situations where persons weren’t able to provide for the payment of the training.
“I think that, it makes it easier for some persons even though sometimes you find that we charge these persons $6,000 to register, when some persons come, do the exam, some parents pay half. And when they get the balance, they bring the next half.”
Meanwhile, he highlighted that with this upcoming influx of students, the Government will adequately supply the LTI with the necessary resources needed.
“Well with the influx, number one, is staff—human resources, which we all know number two is, basically, we call it field materials. Field materials are things they use to do practical work. But the good news is that whatever we need, the Government will provide for our budget.”

He further highlighted that within the budget certain things are already catered for students added that resources will be supplemented by the Government to ensure the influx of students.
“But the number of resources that we decided to use to provide training are covered in our annual budget. For the LTI, the students will get boots, a t-shirt, the ramper, and the ramper safety boots. The students will buy that. When it comes to helmets, gloves, and safety goggles, they get everything they need right in the workshop here at the institution.”
Meanwhile he added that the LTI is already taking strides to ensure they have technical vocational subjects online; however, the cause of this is not due to the population increase of students.
“We are currently working towards going online in some programmes for distance courses. But I won’t say that that will contribute to us going online, I understand but to me, that will cause your programmes to pull up faster, it gives more persons out there easier access to training.”
Anthony also made it clear that in going forward, if online studying is going to be done frequently, various measures will be needed to put into place.
“As it relates to online tutoring, as I mentioned earlier in my discussion, training requires dealing with human resources primarily. And if you’re talking about online training, you’re talking about another investment because then we have to train our staff to facilitate online delivery, let’s say you want to do welding, you have to get someone who will be monitoring and doing the different online modes of delivery.”
President Dr Irfaan Ali recently announced the removal of fees from all educational institutions including the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA), Carnegie School of Home Economics, Government Technical Institutes and the Board of Industrial Training, among others. This measure will take effect from January 1, 2025.
The President’s announcement follows measures to remove tuition fees from the University of Guyana (UG) and the write off of student loans for that tertiary institution. (G2)