-  too little support for crisis-ridden UG

Guyana is lagging behind the rest of the region in terms of the relationship between the university and the business community and newly installed Chancellor of the University of Guyana Professor Compton Bourne has criticized what he describes as the “free-rider situation” that informs the relationship between the local private sector and the country’s sole institution of higher learning.

Chancellor of the University of Guyana Professor Compton Bourne

Professor Bourne, who is also President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) made these remarks at the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry Annual Awards and Dinner Presentation as it has become obvious that urgent private sector intervention may be necessary to rescue the university from terminal decline.

Noting that political ideologies had in the past created a barrier to such partnerships, Bourne told the gathering of business leaders that “with nationalist battles won and the socialist-communist systems abandoned” the way has now been cleared for “rapproachment” between business and universities in the region. “In Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados the business sector has responded by financing endowed professorships, acquisition of equipment capital, construction of buildings, sponsorship of academic programmes and sponsorship of students. There is no reason why a similar relationship should not be forged in Guyana,” Bourne added.

And according to the respected Guyanese academic private sector support for the growth and development of the University of Guyana is not simply a matter of patronage.  He posited that since the business sector draws upon the university for its stock of educated and trained people the relationship between the two “should be transformed from a loose connection in the market for graduates into one of cooperation and partnership.”

Professor Bourne’s robust advocacy of a stronger relationship between the University of Guyana and the local private sector follows similar sentiments expressed by UG’s Vice Chancellor Professor Lawrence Carrington during a luncheon hosted by the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association (GMSA).

President of the GMSA and Vice President of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce Ramesh Dookhoo currently heads a private sector group that has been set up to examine initiatives that can help forge closer ties between the two sectors.

Noting that a circumstance currently exists in which “the university output of graduates is a resource pool to be tapped by all irrespective of contribution to its production,” Bourne said that “the free-rider” status quo allowed any employer to benefit from the production of graduates without directly incurring any of the costs. “In such a situation the burden of financing rests on the government as ultimate provider of quasi-public good and on students who in effect make an investment which they hope to recoup later.”

Bourne told the private sector gathering that there is scope for partnership between UG and the private sector in research and development asserting that “as enterprises search for competitive advantage in the global economy the development of new products as well as product refinement will necessitate research in science and technology which would be more cost-effectively conducted in a university setting.” Additionally, Bourne noted that since potential product demand was a critical consideration “the research interest has to go beyond science and technology to components of market research and industry analysis,” extending into fields “for which expertise in the social sciences, geographical areas and foreign languages are very valuable assets.”