President engages UG faculty staff in talks at retreat
Georgetown, GINA, December 5, 2012, -- Source - GINA
President Donald Ramotar joined staff of the University of Guyana’s Faculty of Social Sciences for talks on the occasion of the institution’s 50th anniversary retreat at the Baganara Island resort today.
He took the opportunity to share the vision of former President Dr Cheddi Jagan for the tertiary institution, reading excerpts of his 1963 speech that he believes are still relevant to today’s environment.
He quoted Dr. Jagan as saying, “The other result which we hope will flow from the establishment of the University of Guyana is the evolution of a Guyanese consciousness, with the stress on our own area and our own needs and interests… with the study on Amerindian languages instead of Greek and Spanish… for only with the development of this national consciousness, will Guyana become the great nation we would all like it to be.”
President Donald Ramotar with staff of the University Of
Guyana’s Faculty of Social Sciences during a retreat at
Baganara
The University of Guyana, established in 1963 is the brainchild of the late Dr Jagan who felt the need to have an institution apart from the University of the West Indies that provides higher level training for the population.
Fifty years later, President Ramotar believes that the University’s influence in the evolution of the Guyanese consciousness that Dr. Jagan had envisioned, is still a task in the making. He told the Faculty staff that the University can play a role in promoting aspects of the Guyanese culture that are critical to forging unity among the diverse ethnic groups in the country.
“What is needed to be done is more work from a cultural level… there needs to be stronger development of tackling the problem from a cultural level… we do have to recognise that prejudice exists and the way to tackle that is by strengthening our cultural activities,’ President Ramotar said.
On November 10, He delivered his first convocation address to the University making strong calls for an end to the mundane talk and chalk method and demanded a no-tolerance approach to tardy lecturers and mediocre performance that encumber the University’s potential to embrace new technologies.
President Donald Ramotar and Dr Paloma Mohamed in
talks with staff of the University of Guyana’s Faculty
of Social Sciences during a retreat at Baganara
“We must unceasingly pursue our goals of turning UG into a top class university among the best. It is necessary that this university improves through quantum leaps because Guyana’s development is at the stage where we will now increasingly be reliant on more highly educated working people,” President Ramotar said in his address.
The sum of $2B will be injected to University of Guyana over the next few years for the strengthening of institution’s science and technology programme.
The 2012 national budget allocated $900M to the University of Guyana and the cost of funding the student loan programme to the tune of about $450M is borne by the Government. A US$250,000 grant from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to the University of Guyana will fund a modern regulatory and operational framework consistent with contemporary universities.
