Economy of Guyana

The electricity sector in Guyana is dominated by Guyana Power and Light (GPL), the state-owned vertically integrated utility. Although the country has a large potential for hydroelectric and bagasse-fueled power generation, most of its 226 MW of installed capacity correspond to thermoelectric diesel-engine driven generators.

Reliability or electricity supply is very low, linked both to technical and institutional deficiencies in the sector, with total losses close to 40% and commercial losses of about 30%. This low reliability has led most firms to install their own diesel generators, which in turn leads to higher than average electricity costs.

In Guyana, the areas outside of the coastal plain are referred to as hinterland. Approximately twenty percent of the Guyanese population live in the hinterland. The population mostly consists of Amerindian communities who have little access to modern energy services such as electricity, light and modern fuels for cooking and transportation. This situation contrasts with the coastal plain, where there is access to the electricity grid. Several initiatives are in place to improve energy services in the hinterland.

According to a 2013 survey of Amerindian villages done by the Inter-American Development Bank, "the most common source of electricity was a government-donated 65kW photovoltaic panel, and the second most common was a village-operated diesel generator. A few households reported having personal generators and privately purchased photovoltaic panels. In most villages, electric service is intermittent, provided for only four to six hours per day." St. Ignatius is an exception, as the community receives electricity from the Lethem grid.^[14]

Telecommunications in Guyana include radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet. Early telecommunications were owned by large foreign firms until the industry was nationalized in the 1970s. Government stifled criticism with a tight control of the media, and the infrastructure lagged behind other countries, Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) holding a monopoly on most such services.^[15] In a 2012 census report on Guyanese households, 55.5% had a radio, 82.7% had a television, 27.8% had a personal computer, and 16.2% had internet at home, 49.3% had a telephone landline, and 70.6% had a cellular phone.^[16]

In the 1990s, a shift towards privatization was geared towards improving the overall quality of services in the country. The 2016 Telecommunications Act was made to improve quality and lower prices for consumers as well as establish universal access.^[15]

Guyana, meaning "land of many waters", is rich in water resources. Most of the population is concentrated in the coastal plain, much of which is below sea level and is protected by a series of sea walls. A series of shallow reservoirs inland of the coastal plain, called "water conservancies", store surface water primarily for irrigation needs.^[17] Key issues in the water and sanitation sector in Guyana are poor service quality, a low level of cost recovery and low levels of access.

Education in Guyana is provided largely by the Government of Guyana, through the Ministry of Education and its arms in the ten different regions of the country. Guyana's education system is a legacy from its time as British Guiana, and is similar to that of the other anglophone member states of the Caribbean Community, which are affiliated to the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). School curricula, funding, standards and other policies are set by the central government and implemented through the Ministry of Education and related agencies. The Education System is divided into eleven districts, ten of which correspond to the national administrative and geographical regions of the country, while the capital, Georgetown, is treated as a separate education district, district 11.^[26] With 8.3% of its GDP spent on education, Guyana sits with Cuba, Iceland, Denmark and Botswana as among the few countries with top spending on education.^[27]

The statutory age for beginning compulsory education is five years nine months, and students are required to attend school until age 16. However, children who do not meet the statutory age to begin school are sometimes enrolled early or generally attend some kind of pre-school. To meet the requirements for compulsory education students generally attend public schools, but there are a few private schools which offer education at one or all stages of learning; home-schooling is virtually non-existent in Guyana. The academic year usually begins in September and ends in July of the following year and with the exception of President's College students have a five-hour school day.

Outside of the private sector, free education from nursery to university was the norm in Guyana until the mid-1990s. The current provision of education is subsidised from nursery through secondary schools, with students now having to pay for tuition at some tertiary institutions. This development reflected a change from the 1970s when Guyana became a socialist-inspired Cooperative Republic. The country's educational policy in the 1970s was intended to broaden access to education, as before that education beyond primary school was expensive and designed primarily for a small elite. In the 1970s single-sex schools were made co-educational; private and parochial schools were incorporated into the public system.^[28]

The reform which occurred was part of a wider phenomenon in a post-colonial CARICOM aiming to provide an education that reflected the full heritage and aspirations of independent states. Today, as part of its obligations to the CXC, Guyana's educational specifications and assessment procedures are bound by regional guidelines.^[29] Students wear uniforms to school.

Guyana has a reading literacy rate at 92% of the population over age 15.^[30] Despite this high level of reading literacy, significant portions of the Guyanese population have functional literacy difficulties resulting in a lack of employability and other socio-economic disadvantages; this has caused government and charitable agencies to push education as a tool in poverty reduction.

Guyana is one of the highest ranked developing countries in the Education Index of the United Nations Human Development Report. With a score of 0.943 on the Education Index, its overall rank is 37, but ranks third in the Caribbean after Cuba and Barbados, and second in South America after Argentina.^[31] According to DFID, Guyana has achieved the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education but continues to struggle with the provision of increased access to satisfactory secondary education.^[32] As one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, instruction in Guyana's schools makes little or no use of instructional technologies such as interactive whiteboards or other multimedia tools. Indeed, many schools are short on basic resources, especially in the areas of science and technology, and this sometimes puts students at a disadvantage when compared to their counterparts in the region.

As part of a continuous effort to tackle inequalities and inefficiencies in the system, the parliament of Guyana has been debating and redrafting the 2007 Education bill. The bill moves Guyana closer to a comprehensive education system, but retains the use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure, despite Guyana's obligations to international conventions such as the UN Rights of the Child.^[33]

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI)^[34] finds that Guyana is fulfilling only 85.0% of what it should be fulfilling for the right to education based on the country's level of income.^[35] HRMI breaks down the right to education by looking at the rights to both primary education and secondary education. While taking into consideration Guyana's income level, the nation is achieving 84.7% of what should be possible based on its resources (income) for primary education and 85.3% for secondary education.^[35]

Tourism in Guyana is a fledgling industry compared to other countries in the Caribbean. Tourism is mainly focused on ecotourism, and accommodations for business travelers.^[38] Guyana is home to Kaieteur Falls, Mount Roraima, and St. George's Cathedral.

In 2020, 18 businesses and 12 tour guides were licensed with the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA).^[39]