Take advantage of Govt’s training programmes

─ Min Teixeira urges Region Seven residents

Residents of Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) have been urged to upskill themselves and be prepared for the massive ongoing transformation in the country. They were further advised to take advantage of the many free training programmes being offered by government.

Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, was in the region at the weekend, where she held meetings with several communities including Bartica, Itabali, Two Miles, River’s View, Agatash, Batavia, and other surrounding villages.

The minister said government recently passed a national budget that will project Guyana’s transformative agenda. She noted that the oil and gas industry, will require jobs from qualified persons.

“We need to train our people and the government is offering those training programmes.

When it comes to the GOAL programme, we came, we talked to people in Region Seven, we had over 300 applications, 276 got awarded GOAL scholarships. We have the WIIN scholarship for women in business and getting into business and training, we had representatives from this region, I think about 30,” Minister Teixeira stated.

The minister said the WIIN scholarships will be advertised in March, but registration for the GOAL scholarship is ongoing. She noted too, that the Board of Industrial Training (BIT) through the Ministry of Labour, is offering training in a number of areas in technical and vocational education and training (TVET).

Persons who dropped out of school and are skilled were encouraged to become certified.

“You are not being judged, what we encourage you to do is to put yourself in order, go back and study. Go back and look for programmes that offer you English and Mathematics. I am not saying go back to school but there are programmes you can do that will give you English and Maths so that you can apply to do other programmes.”

“We must not see this as, for persons who dropped out of school, as that is it, do whatever comes your way. There are possibilities to improve yourselves and to improve your families. And so, we want to make sure that everybody in Guyana has access to these training programmes,” Minister Teixeira said.

In the recently approved 2022 budget, a whopping $74.4 billion will be invested in the country’s educational system.