The new director of the University of Guyana (UG) Berbice Campus plans to institute an aggressive outreach programme in order to arrest the decline in full-time students at Tain.
Speaking at the campus’s seventh convocation ceremony on Saturday last, Professor DR Samad who took up his appointment a month ago, announced plans to revitalize academics in Berbice which he described as “a county that is educationally hungry”.
One hundred of the 160 graduating students attended the convocation and of the absentees, 21 were from the School of Education and Humanities. Twenty-three of the graduating students passed with a distinction and 52 with credit.
Addressing the gathering, Samad, said he had only been in Guyana for only three months, but it felt like 200 years, since a lot had happened. And a lot more is on the cards, he said, stressing his intention to enlist the support of political and social powers, as nothing good can happen in their absence; the private sector because it has a major role to play in his plans, emphasizing that a large part of the convocation ceremony was funded by Berbice private sector and further beyond. Samad told the packed audience that he already had the support of the USA, Canada, and Morocco, and he needed to transform that goodwill into something tangible
The new director sees transporting lecturers from Georgetown as dangerous and hopes to change this in the near future. He also wants to arrest the situation where the fulltime enrolment of students has declined because “the world will not stand still for Guyana to catch it up – Guyanese have to work to do that… There is no need for the old administrative principles, provisions must be made for newer, more modern ways of getting the work done.”
To do this, he will meet all staff individually, as well as students of all secondary schools in Regions 5 and 6 and members of the business community, mayors, and other groups. He feels more could be done to capture secondary school students and plans to prepare “pamphlets for prospective students”.
He plans to address the literacy by having classes on campus being taught by UG students, but before this, plans will be put in place to have teachers taught how to teach. He stressed that having good teachers would mean having good students. There would be “new relevant course structure, with self-evaluation exercises“. There are also plans to “generate more books …invite international writers and advertise abroad”.
Samad also envisages the “twinning of the two campuses”, with the exchange of students and lecturers, internship and new research projects in Agriculture.
He told the graduating students, “your world in which you are graduating into is more complicated than one I graduated into… Be the best of students and help to build Berbice and Guyana.”
He also acknowledged the efforts of all staff members – academic and non-academic.
Delivering the feature address, Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran, Speaker of the National Assembly, reminded the graduates that learning never ends.
“You have now laid the foundation in preparation for the real world,” he said.
The valedictory address was given by Bibi Shiroon DeFreitas, who charged her fellow graduates to show that they can deal responsibly with the knowledge gained and to display an understanding that “shows a rise in our mental perspectives and we must use methods that encourage the exercise of good judgment and the use of our critical faculties.”
UG Pro-Chancellor Dr Prem Misir gave the opening address.
