Need for adequate tech-voc education financing cited

Public and private sector stakeholders on Tuesday engaged in consultations on institutional strengthening of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and the need for adequate financing was raised.

According to a GINA press release, the consultation which was made possible through collaboration between the Government of Guyana and the European Union through the Caribbean Development Bank was held at Regency Suites and was centred on sourcing suitable financing for TVET.

According to the release, John Seeram, a consultant, noted that staff development is one of the areas in need of financing and that TVET lecturers need to be properly trained, the release stated.

“You cannot want one to be delivering their lectures every day and not give them the opportunity to develop themselves, so money has to be spent

on staff development,” Seeram asserted. He suggested that in order to source funds, the public and private sectors should be made to start making small contributions via a levy. However, according to the release, this idea was shut down by stakeholders who noted that having a levy would cause some amount of problems.

The release quoted Tallim Karimullah, a stakeholder at the meeting, as saying “Levy is something that works if the entire population is benefitting. For example of you have levy on payroll taxes to have free health care services, it would work.”

Another suggestion, according to the release, was to have the students pay a small fee for undertaking studies. According to Hugh Griffith, a stakeholder representing MACORP, if students pay, they would also value the education being received.

The release quoted Griffith as explaining that “we want to have a system that is in place to facilitate some loan or something that will enable them to have the education, but they would be responsible for the education… With that, they would value the training that they receive.”

TVET is currently being offered at 14 registered training institutions countrywide. For the year 2015, 467 youths have graduated from TVET institutions while for the year 2016, 345 have thus far graduated.