Essequibo Technical Institute is training more than three hundred students

Dear Editor,

The Essequibo Technical Institute (ETI) is located in Anna Regina Essequibo. The complex originally was a huge Drainage and Irrigation machine repair shop, built by the PNC government in the early ’90s and converted by the PPP/C administration into a Technical Institute. This institute is under the purview of the School Board Secretariat at central office in the Ministry of Education. The present School Board members comprise four experienced school teachers, two social workers, one experienced graduate from GTI, a senior Lands and Survey official as well as one dental technician and a former member of parliament. The institute is well staffed and offers a wide range of technical training. The landscape and building layout is student friendly. The institute has recently established a student dormitory and presently accommodates approximately eighty students drawn from Moruka, Bartica and the Essequibo Islands. The present enrolment is three hundred plus students. The institute also offers evening classes and has solicited the support of Caricom Rice Mills at Anna Regina and the Barama Company at Buck Hall on the Essequibo River, where several students are on a work study programme financed by the two entities. The institute will soon acquire a school bus, which will facilitate school tours among other things. The Institute has a canteen, a sports ground, a lavish assembly hall, security, and first aid. Three staff members are trained to deal with emergencies.

There is a dress code, and smoking and the use of alcohol is prohibited on the premises.

The ETI Board members are to address students on their role, moral behaviour and being good social examples. While the institute’s carpentry section has virtually filled all the classroom needs for furniture, it has also donated a quantity of desks/benches to other schools. It participates in many civic exhibitions, and it is always present at the Annual Essequibo Night held at the Anna Regina centre ground. The ETI enjoys the support of civil society in Essequibo, and above all enjoys the full cooperation of the region’s administration division.

Yours faithfully,
Isahak Basir