Dear Editor,
In September’s New Nation (organ of the PNCR), there appears what is termed “a revolutionary plan to equip and support teachers and deliver quality education to our children” during the pandemic. I, for one, was elated just to see a policy proposal from the party, as I feel the party is overly obsessed with its assumed role of an “opposition” or a “resistance or protest movement”. As such, it has neglected to strategically cast itself as a government-in-waiting or the next government.
The “revolutionary plan” on education reads well. It includes, for example, cash grants and Internet connections for students and teachers across the country…in all, a far more generous and serious package than that currently on offer.
I urge the party to announce a wider set of policy positions to actualize the social and economic rights of Guyanese—now that oil revenues make this possible. It should address in some detail its ideas on, for instance, poverty elimination (not just poverty reduction), universal child and elderly welfare, guaranteed family incomes, food security (guaranteed access to daily nutrition), economic empowerment of women (especially those tied down by burdensome homecare responsibilities) and decent housing.
These positions need to be well publicized for public viewing and feedback. Tucking them inside the New Nation will not do it. As regards the funding of these social and economic rights, the financial conditions now exist to allow the party to escape the classist mindset among our political class that development need not be urgent and that the poor and deprived are an inevitable presence in our midst.
Yours faithfully,
Sherwood Lowe