Dear Editor,
At last, the Yarrowkabra Secondary School is officially opened. I would like to thank the Government of Guyana for ensuring that the Yarrowkabra Secondary School, which had been budgeted for $826 million by the APNU+AFC government in 2018, is now a reality. The project had its political upside and downside, nevertheless, it is finished, and already it needs to be expanded to accommodate about 10 more classrooms; it is one of the better looking schools on the East Bank of Demerara.
As we push for a better Guyana, whether we are in government or opposition, we must take note that education is the backbone of any progressive nation and as a people we need to push for the betterment of our people. Both government and opposition need to brainstorm systems to achieve higher levels of learning because the present system is not achieving its goals. As the President of Guyana said, his government will push for technical education. I welcome that, because that has been one of our major failures over the years, the lack of technical education in school.
With about 27 sawmills on the highway and about 34 in Linden, the time is right for widespread technical
education. About 40% of our wood go to waste, so we need to push our value added industries and training is a major component. As I listened attentively to the President at the opening of the Yarrowkabra School, I noticed his political behaviour was different. He didn’t use the project for political marketing for his party, I just hope this behavior continues.
Editor, I came to Yarrowkabra in 2005 with six children after the big flood in Georgetown. I didn’t analyze that the cost to send them to school at Soesdyke would be high. But then reality stepped in, it cost a lot for every child living in Yarrowkabra. Parents may be able to save $80,000 a year in transportation, now because the school is right here. After I became an RDC Region 4 councilor for the AFC in 2006, I started to hold meetings in Yarrowkabra and other villages on the highway and most of the people were crying out for a Primary School and a Secondary School, water, electricity, roads and jobs.
But the above were difficult to achieve due to shortfalls in income generation. Guyana was in a deficit for a long time, our imports were almost a 100% more than our exports which causes the devaluation of the Guyana dollar. But with the present income from oil and the hundreds of thousands of people who will be coming here many more schools will have to be built on the highway. So let us cooperate for the development of Guyana and guard ourselves against wrong influences and domination by outside forces. Guyanese must be the benefactors of our wealth, and must try to hold on to our culture of sharing. Better will come if Guyana is put first.
Sincerely,
Michael Carrington
AFC Vice Chairman
