STEM Guyana Executive Director Karen Abrams has responded to the disclosure that the Government of Guyana has finalized a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the United Arab Emirates to train primary school children in Coding by declaring that the local organization will shortly be officially informing the Government of Guyana of its preparedness to work in partnership with the initiative.
“Whilst congratulating the government in what is an initiative that seeks to broaden our own national horizons in skills that will be critical to the country’s future we will also be making the authorities aware of the competence and the preparedness of the STEM Guyana organization to support this initiative. We believe that our credentials in this field have been made clear for all to see in recent years and we would certainly be keen to work with the Government of Guyana and the relevant institutions in Dubai to ensure that this new initiative enhances the overall competence of our youngsters in areas that will definitely be relevant to Guyana’s development, going forward.
Abrams was responding to a flier that appeared recently on the Office of the President’s Facebook page, and which this newspaper has seen, disclosing that the Government of Guyana had “just signed an MOU with the UAE the lays the possibility of training thousands of primary school children in coding.”
Asserting that “such an agreement is likely to impact the lives of many Guyanese children since it seeks to prepare them for “a technology-intensive twenty first century,” the STEM Guyana Executive Director told Stabroek Business that she is not only “excited at the prospect of Guyana’s collaboration with a region that would have invested heavily in that discipline” but that it would be her wish that Guyana respond purposefully and seek to ensure, as far as possible, that children from across the country benefit from this wonderful opportunity.”
The official disclosure by the government on the matter says that the initiative will help “transform our country” and give Guyanese children “a better shot at life.”
Abrams, who has used STEM Guyana as a window through which to pilot Guyana to success at international competitions said that “any collaboration with the UAE in the field of coding is bound to benefit Guyana immensely since one assumes that the UAE has been investing heavily in the discipline.” She said that STEM Guyana, “having contributed in a significant way to the pioneering of tuition in the STEM-related disciplines “is ready to do still more to take the process forward. We will be very quickly seeking to determine which state agency has responsibility for overseeing this initiative and will be moving to engage that agency on what we consider to be good news for Guyana,” Abrams told the Stabroek Business.
