President Donald Ramotar said it is imperative that the international community examine the issue of intellectual property rights and the cost of textbooks which remain a challenge for developing countries.
The president told the UN Secretary General Global Initiative on Education Meeting that while it is essential that both boys and girls be given access to education, developing countries are in danger of being left behind due to the prohibitive costs. “This is something that the international community will have to look at, in order to ensure that developing countries are not left behind as far as quality is concerned,” he said.
Ramotar told the meeting that Guyana has the highest number of nursery school enrolments in the Caribbean, has achieved universal primary education and expects to attain universal secondary education within three years. 75% of teachers are trained, a vast increase from five years ago when the figure stood at 58%.
“We want to raise the standard of education and we are investing quite a lot in the physical infrastructure – the schools and the facilities. We’re trying to help with developing more critical skills, life skills in our people, and we want to ensure the relevance of the education system towards the national focus. We are trying to do that by extending education levels in all parts of our country,” he said.
Government is also focused on equipping persons with technical skills though, ensuring sustainability and affordability to allow each child to reach his or her maximum potential remains a challenge. The availability of technology is also prohibitive, Ramotar said, explaining that while government had embarked on the ‘One Laptop Per Family’ programme more support would be welcomed.
In referring to figures which indicated that millions of children are being deprived of education he said much of this was likely due to political turmoil. “Peace is very vital to education, peace and education are linked. We will not be able to achieve these goals that we are setting ourselves…we all have to work for peace as a precondition to delivering quality education to all our people,” he said.
In closing, the president said Guyana remains committed to bringing to fruition UN initiatives that it had agreed to.
