Dear Editor,
Politicians say the silliest things, sometimes. The AFC passed a motion at its National Executive Committee meeting last week to ‘unequivocally support free education from nursery to university’ using the resources derived from oil. This motion was passed unanimously. This is a very strange motion. Currently, in Guyana, nursery education is free, primary education is free and secondary education is free. Most of our tertiary education is free (GTI, LTI, NATI, Carnegie School of Home Economics, CPCE, Guyana School of Agriculture, Port Mourant Training Centre, Guyana Industrial Training Centre, Burrowes School of Art, etc). In fact, the only paid public tertiary institution in Guyana is UG. I don’t understand how or why the AFC passed a motion to support free education when it is already free. They did not only pass it. They passed it unanimously. No a single dissenting vote out of a 110 persons. Didn’t anyone recognize that education is already free?
Editor, my second concern with this strange motion has to do with the equity of this suggestion. As a political party, the AFC, I am sure, takes the entire country into consideration. I would like to know how the AFC intends to give free education to those who are attending private educational institutions. Will they use the oil money to pay the school fees?
Politicians really say puerile things. The AFC wants to use oil resources for free education yet all the lawyers in the party could not advocate for the new education act to be passed in parliament. Our current education act is nearly 80 years old. Oil money is not needed to get this done. I hope the AFC passes a motion at its NEC meeting in 2020 to bring the new education act to parliament. One hopes the AFC is still around to do so.
Yours faithfully,
Mohammed S. Hussain
