Students in Region Two who want to study engineering at the University of Guyana (UG) will soon be able to do without leaving the Pomeroon-Supenaam district.
Minister of Education, Sonia Parag and Presidential Advisor on Education (Tertiary Education Reform), Dr Kofi Dalrymple on Thursday conducted a site visit to the Essequibo Technical Institute to examine classrooms and labs suitable for UG’s engineering curriculum.
The initiative, which is a collaboration between the Ministry of Education and UG, aims to expand access to higher education for students who were not admitted to UG due to space constraints.
Parag said the team was satisfied with the Essequibo Technical Institute classrooms and labs, noting that the facility could accommodate at least 40 students.
She expressed optimism that the programmes could be launched by mid-October, with some classes running in sync with the UG main campus and others scheduled by on-site lecturers in Region Two.
“We have this mandate to have those seats become available by the second week of October so that students can be able to be in a classroom… and pursue the particular programme in engineering and medical sciences.
“We are satisfied after having visited the classrooms and the labs here so we can have a space that can at least accommodate 40 students at the moment. So we are feeling very optimistic that we can be able to achieve this within the time frame,” Parag said.
Dr Dalrymple highlighted the dual goals of equity and access.
“Equity, so that students in this region can get access to the same quality of education as those in Region Four, because the engineering programmes at UG are going towards accreditation which sets a standard. We want to ensure that the facility, the staff and what we set up can meet those standards,” he said.
He also acknowledge that many students discontinue programmes because of limited access in their hometowns. Instead, those students are forced to travel elsewhere, a costly, burdensome venture.
“There is a lot of great things going on in this region…that makes it a lot easier to be able to launch the engineering programme here because we have good human resources already here. Some things we will have to work on. We will need more space and people,” Dr Dalrymple added.
The initiative fulfills a commitment made by President Irfaan Ali to decentralise medical and engineering studies, starting with Regions Two, Three, and Five, where demand is high but campus capacity is limited.
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