Granger promises Rupununi education restructuring should he win the next elections

[www.inewsguyana.com] – Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of A Partnership for National Unity Brigadier David Granger has promised residents of the Rupununi serious education restructuring under a new administration after the next general and regional elections.

Granger, leading a team of eight APNU MPs, is currently visiting twenty-eight communities in the Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo (No. 9) Region.

According to a release from his office, Granger heard about the chronic low performance of students at the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) from villagers in Parishara, Nappi, Hiawa, Yupukarri and St Ignatius. This, in turn, has led to a high rate of ‘dropouts’ from the Region’s four secondary schools at Annai, St Ignatius, Sand Creek and Aishalton. There has consequently been a high rate of youth unemployment throughout the Region.

Parents reportedly complained of the high cost of transportation, overcrowding, inadequate staffing and inappropriate official responses to social challenges facing secondary school students, including some living in dormitories.

Many secondary school students, even those with Caribbean Secondary Education Certificates (CSEC), remained unemployed or ended up working as shop attendants in Lethem, the Region’s administrative centre, or as farm hands, stewardesses or domestics in neighbouring Brazil, according to the APNU.

Granger, reacting to the residents’ complaints, promised that the new administration would remove the impediments primary education, rectify the problems at the secondary level and restructure the education system in what is Guyana’s largest region.

He committed to establishing a Rupununi Technical Institute and a Rupununi Agriculture Institute to give children an opportunity to pursue satisfying employment, becoming entrepreneurs and developing the economy of the Region.