Guyana may experience a new wave of migrants this year, as the situation in Venezuela remains dire, Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn said at his recently held end-of-year press conference.
“We will have perhaps another flood of migrants in desperate circumstances coming from Venezuela,” he said. “There has been an influx from Venezuela of Guyanese persons who still live in Venezuela and if they are forced to leave in fairly rapid circumstances, they will perhaps be in more difficult situations than those who came before.”
Benn emphasized the importance of being prepared for such an influx, ensuring that proper support mechanisms are in place “We want to make sure we are sufficiently aware so we could respond to any potential issue in a proper way and that the support will be provided both for those Guyanese who come and also for refugees or migrants from Venezuela who are forced to come to Guyana,” he said.
Education
Meanwhile, Chief Education Officer Saddam Hossein revealed that more than 4,000 migrant students have been registered through the ministry’s Migrant Unit, part of the School Support Services. This number has remained stable, with Hossein clarifying that no significant increase had been observed in the past year. He said, “… We did a bar graph; it was the same amount from 2022, we’ve had that amount going across.”
Guyana, according to Hossein, is one of the few countries that does not require documentation for migrant children to attend school. Hossein explained that migrant students can simply show up at a local school, where they will be enrolled and receive the full range of services, including textbooks and cash grants. “We have continued to register students, as long as they make themselves available to the schools or we find these students within communities. … So a migrant student does not require a birth certificate. They simply turn up to a school close to where they live and we enrol them in that school,” he explained.
However, challenges remain, particularly with language barriers. To address this, the ministry has implemented over 40 after-school classes dedicated to teaching English as a second language. Additionally, a new curriculum has been introduced that caters to the needs of migrant students. “Our examination unit creates exams in Spanish to cater for the migrant students,” he added.
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand also spoke positively about the achievements of migrant children in the education system. “… We’ve seen children from the migrant population topping at NGSA, CSEC, UG and GTI,” she remarked. “School and health services don’t stop anyone from receiving public services… I like to see people as human beings and particularly children as children, and that’s how we treat them in the school system.”
