Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has given assurances that not only will the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government keep its promise of a free University of Guyana (UG), but that UG students with existing student loan debt will be assisted in some way by the State.
The Vice President made these assurances during an appearance on a radio programme on Monday, where he spoke about how the Government will be using the oil revenues to make the lives of Guyanese better. He reminded that even when they were in Opposition, the PPP/C had identified spending on health and education as priority areas.
“We defined what we wanted to do in the oil and gas sector in Opposition. We said here are the things we will change. Clearly, even before we got into office. We were not convenient about it. We said we will spend a lot of our money in healthcare. Because we believe investing in people’s health is a good expenditure.”
“Secondly, education. We promised scholarships, we promised free education. That will be done before the first five years. And we want to assure all those who are going to university and who have completed university and still have outstanding loans, that we will find a way of assisting you too. I want to assure them of that,” Jagdeo said.
In 2016, a forensic audit into the operations of the UG Student Loan Agency had revealed that over a 21-year period, successive PPP/C Governments made available to the agency over $9 billion for loans.
During the period 1994 to May 2015, the Government of Guyana approved $9,489,453,973 through the National Budget or US$45.5 million (using the current rate of exchange of G$210 to US$1), the 77-page audit report, which was made public on Tuesday by the Finance Ministry stated.
The report stated that during the period April 2011 to December 2014, $1.8 billion was received through a process whereby the Agency’s head was informed by the Budget Department that funds have been approved to be released to the Agency.
Meanwhile, the PPP/C Government has also pursued other avenues of making post-secondary education available to the masses. The Government has already distributed some 14,000 online scholarships through the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL).
The 20,000 online scholarships programme is also the fulfilment of a pledge made to provide opportunities for educational development nationwide. Within the first year of its launch, over 8000 citizens applied for the free online programme.
Jagdeo had previously said the Administration intended to make 20,000 of the online scholarships available. However, the accommodation mark was revised owing to the overwhelming interest shown by citizens.
The Government, through GOAL, partnered with new institutions to meet the challenges and demands of various sectors in Guyana, including the oil and gas, engineering and construction, and information security sectors.
GOAL is set to offer 187 programmes that can be accessed from 15 reputable academic institutions across the world, including in India, Africa, the United Kingdom and Germany. The programmes, which are being financed by the Government, range from certificate to PhD level.
The sum of $1.3 billion was approved for GOAL in Budget 2022.
