Before we even touch the GOAL scholarship controversy, let’s be clear about something the rest of the academic world already understands: research belongs to the researcher. When a student — undergraduate, postgraduate, or doctoral — completes a thesis or dissertation, that work is theirs. Authorship is not optional. You do the work, your name goes on it. Period. Universities may store, archive, or showcase student research. They may even claim limited institutional rights. But they do not own the intellectual property. They cannot remove your name, they cannot repurpose your work, and they certainly cannot present it as institutional output. Doing so is unethical and, frankly, disgraceful. So when a government-funded programme like GOAL begins treating student research as anonymous data — void of authorship, consent, and protection — we have a serious problem on our hands.
Let’s not sugarcoat the facts. The Government of Guyana provides tuition scholarships through GOAL. These payments, we are told, are made directly to tertiary institutions. But no GOAL scholar, as far as we know, has ever received funding to conduct actual research — no support for fieldwork, no stipends, no research grants. The burden of research costs falls entirely on the student. And when the investment of time, effort, and resources comes solely from the researcher, ownership is not just implied — it’s absolute. The research does not belong to the university, not to GOAL, and certainly not to the Govern-ment of Guyana. But it gets worse.
Many GOAL students pursued degrees through foreign universities — institutions beyond Guyana’s legal reach. As part of their academic requirements, students must submit a final thesis or dissertation through official portals. This is standard. What is not standard — and what should set off alarm bells — is that students submit these research papers without any written acknowledgment of their academic rights. There are no signed authorship agreements. No assurances of intellectual protection. No transparency on how the papers will be stored, shared, or credited. Let’s be blunt: this is academic trafficking.
Without legal safeguards, students’ work can be absorbed into the databases, research portfolios, and publishing pipelines of foreign institutions. The Guyanese author — the actual creator — risks being erased from the citation chain. Unacknowledged. Uncredited. Invisible. And here’s the staggering irony: It has to be a first in modern political and academic history that a virtual brain drain, which is exactly what it is, forms part of official government policy — without the author physically leaving the shores of Guyana. We are exporting intellectual capital — knowledge, data, analysis, and ideas — without passports or plane tickets. The work of Guyanese scholars is disappearing into foreign systems, with no mechanism to trace it, protect it, or even the possibility to prove it ever belonged to them.
If the Government of Guyana cannot guarantee that its citizens’ academic work is protected before it is submitted to foreign entities, then GOAL is not a scholarship programme. It is a pipeline of free labour and uncredited research dressed up as public service. This situation demands immediate action. GOAL and the Ministry of Education must answer for this. The following steps are urgent and non-negotiable: Firstly, issue a public statement – Explain what authorship policy exists with all GOAL institutions that are paid by the Government of Guyana and how students’ research is being stored and used. Clarify whether students gave consent to those institutions — because many were never informed.
Secondly, restore authorship and consent – all collected research must be properly attributed. Con-sent must be retroactively sought for any use beyond storage. Going forward, this must be standard policy. Thirdly, conduct an independent review – The University of Guyana, the National Accreditation Council, and independent education professionals must investigate GOAL’s academic practices. If breaches are found, there must be consequences. Fourthly, protect whistleblowers – students are afraid to speak out. Many are employed by the government and fear retaliation. This climate of fear must end. And fifthly, establish national academic integrity guidelines – GOAL must adopt clear, contractually enforceable standards for authorship, data use, and research access — especially since it involves both taxpayers’ and the researcher’s own funds.
We cannot build a knowledge economy while disrespecting the people creating that knowledge. GOAL cannot be dismissive of students’ academic labour and resources, and pretend it’s business as usual. This is not a technical issue. This is not a bureaucratic oversight. This is exploitation. Fix it. Publicly. Now.
