7,410 GOAL scholarships awarded to date – Min. Parag

In keeping with the PPP/C Government’s commitment to delivering 20,000 online scholarships to Guyanese,7,410 Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) scholarships have been awarded to persons to date.

Public Service Minister Sonia Parag made the disclosure as she appeared on The Guyana Dialogue, Thursday.

The GOAL programme is a collaborative effort between the Education and Public Service ministries.

Minister Parag said, “This is such a significant initiative and programme and we have seen an overwhelming response to it. So, in 2021 when the GOAL scholarship was rolled out, we initially intended to grant 4,500 scholarships because the target was 20,000 online scholarships by 2025.

“We intended to give 4,500 but we were able to give ordinary Guyanese and 6,000 ordinary Guyanese the opportunity to either gain a skillset or a tertiary-level education through the programme. In 2022, that number significantly went up from 6,000 to 7410.”

This means 4,780 scholarships were awarded to Guyanese for 2022.

GOAL ushers in a new era of higher tertiary education. It plays a significant role in mitigating the challenges facing persons living in remote and riverain areas.

“We did an oil and gas training as well that added another 70 to that programme. So, the programme has been quite successful and it’s just not to be able to have self-development but to be able to have national development, to be able to reach a wide cross-section of our country,” the minister stated.

$1.3 billion was allocated in the 2022 budget for the GOAL scholarship programme.  This programme is aimed at improving the relevant skills required to support Guyana’s rapid development.

Apart from the GOAL scholarship programme, 350 students are on scholarships at the University of Guyana (UG) to date.

Capacity Building in Information Technology

Meanwhile, the ministry aims to roll out a robust training programme through the Centre for Excellence in Information Technology (CEIT), in Information Technology (IT).

This programme will not only focus on public servants but on communities as well.

“I still think that even though we are the Ministry of Public Service and geared towards building capacity in the public service itself, the communities, I find that we can also go into communities and help them,” Minister Parag expressed.

The centre is an institution tailored to delivering high-quality specialised ICT training to the public sector.