Training

Schooling is compulsory and free of charge between the ages of 6 and 15. 95% of children attend the six-year primary school (2008). Most also go on to secondary school, which consists of a five-year part and a final two-year part. Since 1976, all schools have been state-run, and increased integration between different population groups has since been one of the school’s main goals.

There are about 15 higher education institutions, among others. University of Guyana in Georgetown, three teacher colleges and various technical schools. More than 96% of the population is literate.

In May 1976, Cheddi Jagan declared the need to develop “a national anti-imperialist entity”. This happened at the same time as tensions at the border with neighboring Brazil. PPP MPs returned to parliament, which they had withdrawn from 3 years earlier in protest against electoral fraud. A short time later, Burnham set up a People’s Army in defense of the revolution.

The elections were postponed in favor of a referendum that gave Parliament the task of drafting a new constitution. This caused the PPP to withdraw its members from parliamentary activities for the second time. In 1980, Burnham was elected president by election there. international observers were plagued by scams. The same year, he asked for financial assistance from the IMF and gave multinational companies the right to search for oil and uranium in the country.

In June 1980, Walter Rodney was killed by a bomb attack on his car. He was an intellectual with high international prestige and founder of the opposition party Working Peoples Alliance (WPA). Those responsible were never identified.

After the election, Venezuela resumed its border dispute with Guyana. Caracas claimed the Essequibo area – about 159,000 km² – which makes up three-quarters of Guyana’s territory, claiming that the area had originally been occupied by British imperialism in the 19th century. In 1983, the parties joined the UN, and in 1985 they resumed talks to resolve the conflict through diplomacy. Negotiations focused on the possibility of providing Venezuela with a land corridor to the Atlantic.

In Guayana, the economic crisis deepened and tensions between government and trade unionism intensified. In 1984, therefore, Burnham resumed negotiations with the IMF to obtain a $ 150 million loan, but according to the fund. the president conditions that were “unacceptable”. The US invasion of Grenada in October 1983 was strongly condemned by Guyana, and the relationship between the two countries deteriorated dramatically. Guyana therefore initiated a rapprochement with the socialist countries.

Burnham died in August 1985 and was replaced by Desmond Hoyte. The same year, the PNC won the elections by 78% of the vote, but was accused by the opposition of extensive electoral fraud. In 1986, 5 of the opposition’s 6 parties formed the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy. It decided to boycott the municipal elections in 1986, which meant that the ruling party got all the seats in the country’s municipal councils. Hoyte was re-elected president and declared in January 1987 that the government was returning to “cooperative socialism”.

Parliament met on December 3, 1991, five days after the government declared the state of emergency, with a view to postponing the holding of elections scheduled for the same month. The government overheard the opposition’s protests and extended the state of emergency until June 1992. At the October 5, 1992 election, Cheddi Jagan, with 54% of the vote, beat the incumbent president, gaining 41%. The PPP got 32 of Parliament’s seats against the PNC’s 31.

As one of the first South American leaders to declare himself a Marxist in the 1950’s, Jagan now returned to power, ending 28 years of uninterrupted PNC rule. Unlike neighboring countries – including Brazil – in early 1993, Cheddi Jagan allowed the deployment of North American troops for drills in the country’s rainforests. At the same time, he gave the United States military the right to operate in Guyana to combat drug trafficking, and at the same time pledged its participation in the development of the country’s interior.