Education Minister visits GOAL, the facility to house the 20,000 Scholarship Programme
As the Government of Guyana prepares to launch the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) to fulfil its manifesto promise to provide 20,000 online scholarships to Guyanese, the Honourable Minister of Education Priya Manickchand toured the location today that will house the Academy.
The offices of GOAL will be housed on the Ogle Estate, East Coast Demerara. The Academy will be headed by Dr. Jacob Opadeyi. The Education Minister engaged Dr. Opadeyi and the staff of GOAL on the important role they are playing to facilitate the capacity development of Guyanese on a national scale.
The 20,000 scholarships will be offered over five years with 4,500 of those scholarships to be awarded this year.
Guyanese can apply to pursue any of the over 80 programmes being offered through GOAL from five internationally acclaimed universities. These are the University of the West Indies Open Campus, the University of the Southern Caribbean (USC), the University of Applied Sciences (IUBH), the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and the JAIN “Deemed To Be” University.
Programmes will be offered from the Certificate level up to the PhD level. The timeline for completing these programmes range from two months to three years.
Application forms are now available on the Ministry of Education’s website at www.education.gov.gy. The GOAL website will be launched this week to facilitate the submission of digital applications by interested persons.
This initiative is the Government of Guyana’s way of providing opportunities to Guyanese for training, academic growth and lifelong learning. It is expected that over time, more Universities will come on board to provide additional programs in various areas to Guyanese.