University of Guyana

The University of Guyana, in Georgetown, Guyana, is Guyana's national and most prestigious higher education institution. It was established in April 1963 and was the first National university of a Caribbean nation. The university has the following Mission: "To discover, generate, disseminate, and apply knowledge of the highest standard for the service of the community, the nation, and of all mankind within an atmosphere of academic freedom that allows for free and critical enquiry."

The University of Guyana offers more than 180 undergraduate and graduate programmes in over 80 disciplines. The university focuses on Natural Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Forestry, Urban Planning and Management, Tourism Studies, Education, Creative Arts, Economics, Law, Medicine, Optometry and Nursing among other areas of study. The University experienced its largest enrollment in 2024 with 4000 students and boasts an alumni body of more than 71,000 students who have gone on to pursue various professional careers locally, regionally, and internationally. The university is also a major contributor to Guyana's public and private sectors and the national economy.

University of Guyana: Other Campuses

University of Guyana, Tain Campus became operational in 2000. It was established with the intention of making University education more accessible to Berbicians. The University, in 2025, signed an agreement to open a new campus at Aishalton.

History

Cheddi Jagan, then Premier of British Guiana, considered that the University of the West Indies, to which his government had contributed since 1948, was not meeting the demand of his countrymen for higher education. On 4 January 1962, Jagan wrote to Harold Drayton, then in Ghana, to ask him to seek the advice of W. E. B. Du Bois on starting a new university.

Drayton returned to British Guiana in December 1962, and it was on his advice that Jagan wrote to socialist scholars in the United Kingdom and United States, including Joan Robinson at the University of Cambridge, Paul Baran at Stanford University, and Lancelot Hogben at Birmingham to involve them in the recruitment of staff.

The university opened on the grounds of Queen's College on October 1, 1963. Its first chancellor was Edgar Mortimer Duke and its first Principal and Vice-Chancellor was the British biologist and mathematician Lancelot Hogben.

Guyana's 1964 general election held on 7 December saw the defeat of Cheddi Jagan's People's Progressive Party. Despite losing the election, Jagan refused to resign, and had to be removed by Governor Richard Luyt, with Forbes Burnham replacing him.

Burnham, as the new Prime Minister, relocated the University to lands donated by Bookers Agricultural Holdings. The University was then expanded to include more programmes, courses and faculties. By the year 1973, the University boasted lecturers from all over the world and its labs were noted to be up to international standards. The University of Guyana was finally on par with the regional University of the West Indies in 1975. The following year, then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham abolished all University tuition and enshrined free education in the 1980 Constitution as a citizen's right. Tuition was reintroduced at the University in 1994 by the People's Progressive Party/Civic government. It remained this way until 2025 when tuition was once again abolished for Guyanese Citizens.

The University of Guyana is Guyana's sole national higher education institution. It was established on April 18, 1963 with the following Mission: “To discover, generate, disseminate, and apply knowledge of the highest standard for the service of the community, the nation, and of all mankind within an atmosphere of academic freedom that allows for free and critical enquiry.” At first, programmes were confined to the Arts, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences. A Faculty of Education was created in 1967, and this was followed by the Faculty of Technology in 1969, the Institute for Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE), began as an extramural unit, in 1975, the Faculties of Agriculture (1977) and Health Sciences (1981), the latter as an outgrowth of Natural Sciences.

Organisation and Structure

The university offers certificate, diploma, associate degree, undergraduate degree, graduate (post-graduate) degree, and professional degree programs. These programmes are delivered through the following nine organizational units, called Faculties, each of which is headed by a Dean:

• Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry,
• Faculty of Earth and Environmental Studies,
• Faculty of Education and Humanities,
• College of Medical Sciences,
• Faculty of Natural Sciences,
• Faculty of Social Sciences,
• Faculty of Engineering and Technology,
• College of Behavioural Sciences and Research, and

School of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation.

The university established its first doctoral program, the PhD in Biodiversity, in 2019. This program is interdisciplinary, spanning three Faculties: Earth and Environmental Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Agriculture and Forestry. The first graduates received their degrees in 2021.

Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry

The Faculty of Agriculture was established in 1977 offering a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in Agriculture. A Diploma in Forestry was introduced in 1987 and the B.Sc. in Forestry in 1996. The Forestry Unit was initially under the Office of the Vice-Chancellor and was placed under the Faculty of Agriculture in November 1989. The curricula for both the Diploma and the B.Sc. in Forestry were extensively revised in September 2016. The Faculty now offers a M.Sc. in Agro-Technology and Business.

The Faculty of Agriculture was renamed the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry in September, 2002. Simultaneously, the Forestry Unit was upgraded to the Department of Forestry. To improve the quality of forestry education in Guyana, the UK Department for International Development provided funding through the Guyana Forestry Commission Support Project for a building for the Department of Forestry. This building was officially opened and handed over to the Faculty on October 25, 2002.

Over the years the student population has grown significantly and with the offering of new programmes it is anticipated that this pattern will continue.

The Research Station was launched on April 14, 2004. It is located on the Turkeyen Campus immediately east of the Faculty buildings.

Graduates of the Faculty continue to make major contribution to the agricultural, fisheries and forestry sectors both locally and regionally. They are well grounded to fill key positions in private and public enterprises at both middle and senior management levels.

Faculty of Earth and Environmental Studies

The Environmental Studies Unit (ESU) was established in 1993 for the purpose of promoting teaching and research and providing guidance to decision-makers and national agencies in the areas of natural resources management and environmental conservation. The ESU continued until 2005 when the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences (SEES) was established through a merger of the ESU and the Department of Geography (DoG). With the merger of the ESU and the DoG, both degree programmes in Environmental Studies and Geography were offered under one umbrella body but retaining their separate identities. This merger expanded the areas of focus to include teaching and research in geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing; the two being perceived as newly emerging and pivotal academic fields in Guyana.

Notable people

Alumni

• Carolyn Rodrigues, former foreign minister of Guyana
• Mahadai Das, Guyanese writer
• M. Jamal Deen, FRSC FCAE FINAE, Professor and Senior Canada Research Chair, McMaster University, Canada
• Odeen Ishmael, Guyanese diplomat and ambassador
• Merlin Udho, Guyanese educator and diplomat
• Denis Williams, Guyanese painter and archaeologist
• Shana Yardan, Indo-Guyanese poet

Faculty and administrators

• Joyce Sparer Adler, American critic, playwright, and teacher, as well as a founding faculty of the university in 1963
• Derek Bickerton, former lecturer, now Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at University of Hawai'i, Honolulu
• Horace B. Davis, United States Marxian economist
• Michael Gilkes, Guyanese writer and academic
• Stanley Greaves, Guyanese painter, former head of Creative Arts at the university
• Richard Hart, Jamaican lawyer and politician
• Lancelot Hogben, English zoologist and geneticist
• Abdur Rahman Slade Hopkinson, Guyanese writer and professor at the university (1966–68)

Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)