Increasing… brain power?

If the recently released figures of the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) program are anything to go by – as far as becoming “educated” – we Guyanese have come a looong way, baby!!! Imagine over 55,000 have enrolled – 14,000 this year alone! – for the various levels of educational goals in the last five years!! Originally the govt had talked about 20,000 scholarships but your Eyewitness can infer from the latest enrollment numbers that the demand just kept rising!!
The GOAL offerings range from the “Certificate & GROW Programmes” that don’t ask for ANY prior formal education but prepare folks for entry into those that do – Vocational/Skills Training, Bachelors, Masters and PhD programs!! At the impressive graduation ceremony the other day, there were 3800+ certificates and Bachelor degrees awarded along with 836 Masters and 35 PhDs!! Yep, we graduated the first batch of academic doctors from the program!!
And on top of this, of course, is our UG that churned out 3600 graduates last year – and 80,000 over the last sixty-two years!! Now for a country with just around 500,000 adults does this mean that one out of five of them is a graduate??? Well, not exactly – since more that 80% of UG graduates have decamped to greener pastures!! And this brings us to your Eyewitness’ major concern – that the new brain trust being produced don’t also head for foreign!!
The GOAL program, of course, wasn’t just intended for us to all address each other as “Doctor” – but to prepare us to better participate in creating and enjoying the opportunities of our oil-fueled development!! So, in your Eyewitness’ estimate, the key to keeping our newly-minted, parchment-equipped class at home is to ensure that the job opportunities – with appropriate pay – become available!! And on that note, your Eyewitness is pleased one Govt official emphasized that locals must get the same pay as furriners for doing the same job!! But sadly, he gotta confess that many locals are still infatuated with the lure of furrin – even though they’re not only being called dog-eaters when they get there – but treated worse than stray dogs!!
One interesting factoid from the recent statistics on GOAL graduates was that more than half – 2558 of 3800 – of the graduates were women!! Now while that’s good for women that’s a troubling figure overall!! We now have a population of young men who don’t want to upgrade their skills AND refuse to take up the burgeoning unskilled jobs in the construction industry!! There the Venezuelans rule the roost!
So all in all, while the GOAL program is a worthwhile govt initiative, its success gonna ultimately depend on we the people taking advantage of opportunities.
Including using the free loans available to start our own businesses!!

…colonies
Oh…how sweet it is – the ironies of history, that is!! Britain – which insisted we address it as “Great” Britain!! – had ruled its roost of colonies on which the “sun never set” – for centuries!! But it’s now in the final stages of being colonized by one of its former colonies the USA!! How else can you adjudge the latest move by US Pres Trump ordering UK PM Starmer to STEP DOWN – and have it promptly done??!!
This is the inevitable end game of what had started in WWII – when the Brits conceded they had to play second fiddle to the Yanks. For a while, they kept face by claiming a “special relationship” with the Yanks – but glossed over they were invariably number two in a relationship of subservience. But what’s happening right now is ironic for another reason.
The US is fighting off the rise of China – and the colonization of Britain is more to pre-empt the Chinks than any intrinsic value in ole Blighty!!

…quaffing
It’s the end of a glorious era!! Peter D’Aguiar had founded Banks Breweries in 1955 – but the elixir of the gods reaching parched Guyanese throats in 1956. For 70 years we’ve been quaffing “Banks” from bottles – and now cans!!