Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has revealed that the government anticipates writing off an additional 2,900 student loans this year, totaling approximately $5 billion.
Jagdeo urged former University of Guyana students with outstanding loans to apply for the write-off programme, stating, “if more people come in, we would write all of it off in a single year, the full $18 billion, once they are eligible.”
“I want to urge the students who have outstanding debts to just apply for the write-off so that we can proceed with doing so. It will be a pretty large number of students—thousands of them.”
Some 346 students, amounting to $203.7 million, have already had their loans written off, according to the Ministry of Finance’s 2024 mid-year report.
It was earlier this year, that the government announced the student loan write-off programme in the 2024 budget. Phase one of the programme is expected to benefit around 13,000 individuals and forgive a staggering $11 billion in loans, with plans to eventually write off a total of $18 billion in student loans.
The student loan write-off is a key component of the People’s Progressive Party’s 2020 manifesto and represents the initial steps toward achieving free university education at the University of Guyana (UG) by 2025.
In addition to the loan write-off initiative, the government has been actively promoting the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) programme, which offers free university education opportunities.
To date, the government has invested $1.6 billion in scholarships through this program. As of May 2024, over 4,000 individuals graduated with degrees, diplomas, and certificates, while an impressive 8,023 GOAL scholarships were awarded for studies commencing in September 2024.
