A justification for the 2024 budgetary allocations for UG and GOAL

The effort by some to engage in a disinformation campaign, for the sake of political gain or some other misguided agenda, is baffling if for no other reason than the time and energy such activities demand. During the presentation of Budget 2024, it was announced that $4 billion will be allocated to the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) and $4.1 billion to UG. The allocation to GOAL seems to have triggered the Parliamentary Opposition and their acolytes operating from behind screens on social medial platforms. First, the PNCR-led APNU+AFC Coalition’s leader, Aubrey Norton, and Parliamentarian, Amanza Walton-Desir, jumped into the news cycle with the bizarre claim that the GOAL funding is going to someone close to the PPP/C government. Editor, is the Coalition so triggered by the fact the PPP/C government’s accomplishment of 20,000 scholarships to Guyanese youths that it resorts to wild, unfounded claims? So, what are the facts?

The fact is that GOAL offers the following: Pre-University Foundation Programmes available from three different institutions: Amity University (A minimum of 4 passes at CXC), JAIN (Completed Grade Nine) and International Skills Development Corporation. UG does not offer anything of this sort. Certificates where no formal education is required, only the student must be functionally literate. These programs are from UWI Global Campus, JAIN and Amity; and cover over 107 programs. UG has a Managing Communities in Emergencies program that doesn’t seem to have an academic requirement as a pre-requisite. Undergraduate

Certificates from UWI Global Campus and the University for Peace (UN Costa Rica) and they offer more than 10 different programmes.

Associate Degree Programmes where five CXC passes are needed from AA Maritime & Offshore Training Institute (GUYANA) and the Sherlock Institute of Forensic Science (SIFS) and they offer forty-four different programmes; none of these programmes are available at the University of Guyana. The University of Guyana offers 7 Certificate programmes and about 10 Diplomas. They also have 24 associate degree programmes. Bachelor’s Degrees from Amity University, Universidad del Caribe (UNICARIBE), International University of Applied Science (Germany), JAIN, Texila American University (Guyana), University of Southern Caribbean, UNICAF Malawi, UNICAF Zambia, ISDC in partnership with Staffordshire University (UK) and they cover over 185 programmes – some of which not available at the University of Guyana. The University of Guyana offers roughly 80 programmes at the undergraduate level.

Post Graduate Certificate Programmes and Post Graduate Diploma Programmes from Universidad del Caribe (UNICARIBE) and JAIN and they cover over twenty different programmes, not all of these programmes are offered at the University of Guyana. The University of Guyana has a singular Executive Certificate Programme. Master’s Degrees from Amity, University for Peace, International University of Applied Science (Germany), Texila American University (Guyana), JAIN, Structuralia - Universidad Isabel, I, (Spain), UNICAF (East London University), UNICAF (University of Suffolk), UNICAF (Liverpool John Moores University), UNICAF University (Zambia and Malawi), Universidad del Caribe (UNICARIBE), ISDC in partnership with Staffordshire University and these schools cover over 200 masters programmes. The University of Guyana offers around 20 different Master’s programmes. Four PhD programmes from two different schools; whereas UG has three PhD programmes.

Also, Guyanese options is what the government has done. UG does not have the capacity to support as many students. They do not offer as many programmes as we can get if we expand the offerings to schools out of Guyana. The current budget for GOAL is to support 3,967 continuing students and bring on 6,000 new students. Secondly, the Coalition’s acolytes have jumped onto social media to claim that the allocations for GOAL since ‘a google search would show that the Coursera certificates’ do not have the same recognition as University of Guyana. So, what are the facts?

GOAL and Coursera must not be confused. They are separate programmes. Separate from GOAL, an allocation for $350 million was included in Budget 2024 for the bulk licensing arrangement with Coursera to train up to 450,000 persons in a wide range of areas where skills gaps exist. Further, a simple Google search would have explained Coursera to those keyboard warriors. According to ‘Coursera Impact Report 2020’, the top five most popular courses that people learn from Coursera were contact tracing, digital marketing, project management, Python programming, and social psychology. As of 2017, Coursera offered complete master’s degrees. Google, IBM, Meta and other well-known companies, launched various courses for professional certificates, allowing students to fill the workforce in various sectors, such as data analytics, IT support, digital marketing, UX design, project management, and Data science. According to Google, their courses are equivalent to 4-year degrees. They also offer 100,000 scholarships. Google and its 20+ partners will accept those certificates as 4-year degree equivalent.

Also, in 2020, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of the Public Service and the Private Sector Commission signed a MoU agreeing to recognise the certificates earned by students who have completed online courses via the Commonwealth of Learning and Coursera. This means that undertaking any of the Coursera programmes is not a waste of time. Editor, Guyanese recall the PNCRled Coalition’s efforts via its ‘whisper campaign’ in certain communities to dissuade young Guyanese to not take advantage of the education and training programmes being offered and supported by the PPP/C government. They would rather see young Guyanese not benefit from advancement opportunities, just to be able to say to those youths, come elections time, that the PPP/C government did nothing for them. What kind of leadership is that?

It would be my humble advice to these brave keyboard warriors, hiding behind computer screens, to: one, recognise that their disinformation campaign does nothing for the country and the people they claim to care so much for; and two, take advantage of the GOAL or Coursera programmes to educate themselves on ‘how to conduct research’. To the Parliamentary Opposition, I would advise that they have a duty to Guyanese to elevate their leadership, since our people deserve more from those in the Opposition camp, who deign to allocate to themselves the tile of national leaders.