Guyana National Service (GNS)

In 1973 a paramilitary organization, the Guyana National Service (GNS), was created. Generally used as a manpower source for public works and services, it also had a limited military potential. The government envisioned the GNS as an organization that would produce "cadres" sufficiently skilled to depart the populated coast and relocate to the underdeveloped interior.

According to the GNS's enabling document, the Guyana National Service State Paper, this program would prepare Guyanese to use their time and energies profitably and productively; it would equip them with the knowledge and experience to open up, develop, and live on the rich lands available in the hinterland. It would mobilize and motivate support for the Guyanese people's effort to "feed, clothe, and house" themselves; inculcate the skills and attitudes necessary for nation-building and national development; and transform individuals accustomed to depending upon external aid into self-reliant and productive citizens.

The GNS was to encourage the physical and mental discipline necessary for development and to ensure cohesion and unity among the various ethnic, religious, social, and economic groups in Guyana.

The 1,500-person GNS was divided into various corps for young people from ages eight to twenty-five and was integrated into public education. Associated with the Afro-Guyanese-dominated PNC, it was almost exclusively composed of young Afro-Guyanese. The program evolved from an earlier voluntary service group called the Guyana Youth Corps. This organization, whose mission had been to populate the hinterland, failed because of a lack of public support.

The government requirement that University of Guyana students and government scholarship students perform one year of service with the GNS in the republic's interior posed problems for young Indo-Guyanese women. It was customary in Guyana for single women of all ethnic groups to live at home with their parents. When away from home, single women lived with relatives or board with families. The Indo-Guyanese were particularly concerned that the GNS program was a scheme to foster inter-racial relationships.

Many women refused to enter the GNS and, as a result, did not graduate from the university. It became common practice among Indo-Guyanese to attend college overseas to avoid the GNS program. GNS teaching was highly ideological. Although membership was optional at the elementary and secondary levels, students who did not participate were not provided the results of their high-school placement examinations.

Elementary school students who did participate were organized into "Young Brigades" and taught to march and chant party slogans. Later, as high-school juniors, students were encouraged to join the Guyana National Service Cadet Corps. The corps was similar to Cuba's Young Pioneers, with the Guyanese cadets going to field camps for political indoctrination.

Launched in 1974, the GNS had its origins in an attempt to solve the problem of youth unemployment in the mid-1960s. Before its controversial dismantling in 2000, over 20,000 youths were trained in various para-military and life skills. The Veterans Commission of Inquiry was set up by President David Granger and tasked with examining the conditions and circumstances facing veterans of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), the Guyana People’s Militia and GNS.

In keeping with the administration’s vision for youth development, Head of State David Granger on August 26, 2015 called on ex-members of the Guyana National Service local and foreign arm to play a greater role in moulding the nation’s youths. President Granger said too many youths have fallen prey to the social ills of society and he strongly believed that a lot of talent is wasted by having youths locked away in correctional facilities for minor offences.

“The big problem facing this country, facing young people, is not the absence of national service. It’s poverty,” the President said. Recognising this, the President said the cycle of poverty must be broken and one sure way of doing so is by affording children access to education. “My analysis is that the major cause of poverty is the education system; the poor education. Many of us started off life poor but we were able to escape from poverty because we decided to educate ourselves, and that is what National Service did,” President Granger added.