Ministry awarded 446 scholarships since August

The Ministry of the Public Service distributed 446 scholarships for both local and overseas studies to persons across the country since the PPP/C government was sworn into office on August 2nd, 2020.

This disclosure was made by Minister of Public Service, Sonia Parag, in her written response to questions asked by Opposition member Tabitha Sarabo-Halley. The response was circulated at yesterday’s sitting of the National Assembly.

Sarabo-Halley asked for the programme and cost of every local scholarship which was awarded since August 2, 2020 to be provided.

In her response, Parag said scholarships were awarded to the University of Guyana (UG), the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA), the Art Williams and Harry Wendt Aeronautical

School and Texila American University.

The tuition fees ranged from $228,448 to $1,427,800.

As it relates to overseas scholarships, Parag listed the countries and tuition. Scholarships were taken up in the UK, India, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and other countries. Tuition went as high as $6.86m for ophthalmology in the UK.

Sarabo-Halley also asked for an “accurate” breakdown of the geographic and demographic spread of the awardees for the scholarships. Parag noted that the scholarships were distributed across the ten administrative regions.

Region Four received the highest amount with 226 scholarships followed by Region Three with 51.

Region Ten had 45 recipients, Region Six, 42; Region Five, 23;

Region Two, 21; Region One, 14 and Region Nine, 10. Regions Seven and Eight had seven awardees each.

Asked further about what quantity of overseas scholarships are online, Parag said that there are 26 online scholarships.

She said that it must be noted that due to the COVID-19 pandemic most scholarship awards are online in nature.