Seven Guyanese students have now accepted the offer to travel to Mexico on scholarships and the numbers may increase as the date for the commencement of classes has been pushed back, according to personal assistant to the Mexican Ambassador Marisoli Flores.
Flores yesterday told Stabroek News that the date for the commencement of classes is now May 3, but made it clear that the delay has nothing to do with the refusal to take up the offer by most of the students who were awarded the scholarships. She said that it was due to some “logistical problems” that the date has been pushed back.
The students were initially scheduled to leave for Mexico yesterday but Flores said that a new date would now have to be fixed.
“We do not have a final list of students yet but we have seven names of persons who are going,” she said yesterday.
Meanwhile, to date Minister of Public Service Dr Jennifer Westford has not issued a statement or responded to calls from Stabroek News about the mix-up that has caused most of the 18 students who were awarded the scholarships to refuse it in the end.
Up to last Thursday only three students had accepted the offer as they only belatedly were informed that they would have received certificate and not a Bachelors degree at the end of the three years of studies.
Last Friday, Mexican Ambassador Fernando Sandoval had said he was “surprised” at the misunderstanding over scholarships awarded to students for studies in his country but stressed that that the information about the programme was released four months ago.
“I have information that some of them are not going to go, but I want to be very clear that when we sent information last year it is was very clear the kind of scholarships that Mexico was offering,” Sandoval said during a press conference held at his Brickdam office. The ambassador said he was “very sorry” that some of the scholarship awardees are now refusing to go and emphasized that that Mexico is offering a very good opportunity. “I will say, that I am very sorry that this happened because … Mexico… is doing its best effort to give opportunities to the young Guyanese.
“We are doing what we can do and we are offering this opportunity and we think this is a very good opportunity, but of course the youngsters in Guyana can make their decisions of going or not going. But what I want to say here today is that we are doing it with the best consideration in good faith and the information we gave in December of last year was the same information that I am giving to you now.”
The students, who recently completed secondary school, were granted scholarships to study in Mexico for technical certificates. Last Wednesday, however, most of them refused to take up the offer as they were initially under the impression that they were going to be awarded Bachelors degrees at the end and not certificates.
The students had to take an entrance examination, which included Spanish, before they were selected.
The students had said that the advertisement they responded to offered degree studies in three disciplines. Most of them felt it would be a waste of time to travel to Mexico and study for three years, at the end of which they would be awarded a certificate that is equivalent to the one from the Government Technical Institute (GTI). To compound matters, they would also be required to serve the government for five years upon their return to the country.
The students were expected to take up their studies at the National School of Professional Technical Education and to study Spanish for four months before taking up the classes in the various disciplines. Half of the students were being offered studies in environmental conservation while the remainder would have studied in the area of food and beverages, hospitality in tourism and industrial electricity. Sandoval said that the National School of Professional Technical Education is a tertiary institution and part of the country’s National System of Technical Education.
