President David Granger on Saturday pledged to add two more ‘B’s to his ‘Boats, Buses and Bicycles’ programme, in the form of books and breakfast, to ensure children from across the country are not stymied in attending school.
A release from the Ministry of the Presidency said that Granger was at the time speaking at the commissioning ceremony in MacKenzie, Linden for a school boat, which has been donated for use by children who reside in the Upper Demerara River area.
The ‘David G II’ was donated by CGX Energy Incorporated last year and was originally for use in the Pomeroon River. However, it was determined to be better-suited for the children in the Upper Demerara River. The release said that the regional administration has also allocated money in the budget to purchase a bus for the children in the Christianburg, Linden area.
The release said that Granger also used the opportunity to call on the Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice, Regional Democratic Council (RDC) to establish the Upper Demerara Education Scholarship Trust, in which he promised to heavily invest.
“It is when I come to regions like this that I get ideas. The children have to get up in the morning and paddle to get to school. Some of them never go to school because they cannot afford to go to school. Part of the problem is that some parents lack money to provide transportation for the children to get to school and part of the solution is for us to provide transportation for them to get to school and it is my job to solve these problems. I want to ensure that every child get to school…it’s a simple mission. The Constitution says education is an entitlement and I want to fulfill that constitutional requirement. Children must not be kept at home because they can’t afford to go to school,” President Granger said.
The President then announced that he was exploring the idea of introducing books and breakfast in the schools across the country.
“We will have another ‘B’ for books and eventually yet another ‘B, breakfast. My officers are already working on it. Every child must be in school. I believe in an equal society and you become equal by ensuring that everybody has equal access to education. If we want to build an equal society, we have to give our children equal access to education.
It is the basis for equality… You can choose any profession but if you do not have the education, you cannot be employed,” he told those present.
Granger also issued a plea to the residents to make every effort to ensure that their children stay in school.
“Promise yourselves to do everything that is possible to keep your child in school and if you can’t afford it then we will see what we can do in terms of providing a bicycle or if you live in a riverine area, provide a boat and if you live on part of the highway, by providing a bus for you. If you don’t have food, we will provide breakfast.
If you don’t have money, we will provide a bursary. We must do everything possible to keep our children in school to deliver that good life that was promised to all Guyanese…,” he said.
Regional Chairman Renis Morian said that the boat will be very useful.
“This boat will be used as far down the Demerara River as possible. It is going to benefit at least 60 children.
This will ensure that children are in school because when they are not in school, we have work for the police, for the courts, for the magistrates. So we don’t want the deviant behaviour.
We would like our children to be educated. Once you are educated, it is easy to get you into a developmental programme than anything else,” Morian said.
