Minister of Education Priya Manickchand on Wednesday commissioned a new $360M Practical Instruction Department (PID) at the Bartica Secondary School.
The facility is the sixth of its kind constructed under the Guyana Skills Development and Employability Project (GSDEP), a flagship initiative that introduces Technical and Vocational education in schools.
Speaking at the commissioning ceremony, the Education Minister noted that the new facility represents a broader intention to provide students with both practical and academic option options.
“This facility today is not only us being able to deliver a facility, this is us, wanting to change lives and wanting to give children options and I am very pleased to see boys doing commercial food and girls doing motor repairs, and young people enjoying masonry and plumbing and us not being locked into a gender box, what we are doing here today is to give you options and that is what Education should be,” the Minister noted.
The newly commissioned Bartica PID has been designated a purpose-built training center.
The facility cost $273M to construct and supervise, with an additional $87M invested in tools and equipment, bringing the total investment to more than $360M.
The project falls under GSDEP, which is funded through a US$14.04M partnership between the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Government of Guyana.
Of this, US$11.7M came from the CDB loan facility, US$552,000 from a grant, and US$1.79M in counterpart funding from the Government of Guyana.
“So, in Guyana right now, we have TVET education in a very structured state of the art way, in nine of the ten regions in this country with Georgetown and region six having more than one facility,” the Minister noted.
The Practical Instruction Department is equipped with modern training spaces for a wide range of technical disciplines.
It also features a commercial food preparation kitchen with all the necessary equipment found in a professional culinary environment. The motor vehicle and small engine workshop includes hydraulic lifts, a digital wheel alignment system, and diagnostic tools capable of servicing everything from family cars to heavy-duty machinery.
The welding workshop is outfitted for arc, MIG, and acetylene welding, while the furniture-making workshop features high-grade saws and woodworking equipment.
There is also a masonry and plumbing workshop with everything from tile cutters to concrete vibrators. Additionally, the facility boasts a rehabilitated smart classroom equipped with computers, a smartboard, and Starlink internet to support digital learning.
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