The Surinamese government has committed to student exchange programmes with the University of Guyana (UG) Tain Campus in order to maximise ties between the two countries.
Surinamese Minister of Finance Woonie Bhoedoe made this commitment during a one-day tour of the Tain Campus along with Surinamese President Desi Bouterse, a press release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said.
Bhoedoe told students that currently there is an exchange programme with UG’s Turkeyen Campus. “I’m going to make sure that we extend that programme to the Berbice campus because it’s much closer,” she said, in response to a student’s question about the prospects of student and faculty exchanges between the two countries.
Bouterse and his team accepted an invitation from President Bharrat Jagdeo to visit the ancient county, on the heels of discussions with Suriname on strengthening relations. Jagdeo said that on the occasion of the Surinamese president’s visit it was important that he meet the nation’s youth.
“It is important that you share the vision of where our country is going and the vision that we have of developing stronger ties between Guyana and Suriname. If your counterparts, people like you in universities in Suriname share the same view, it makes the task of bringing our countries closer together sustainable and easier,” Jagdeo said. GINA said in his address to the student population, the president reminded them that the campus was established after a period of much contention for land acquisition, opposition forces in Parliament and the decision whether to make it independent or a satellite campus.
Meanwhile, in his address to the campus, the Suriname president said that youth are at the centre of the new pathway which Suriname has adopted. Youth comprise 67 per cent of the Surinamese population and as such an investment in this group is the most important. Bouterse also referred to a youth movement in his country which he considered the largest in the Caribbean. “Today I see a lot of young faces looking up at me and I want to take this opportunity to ask you to take part in this new path Suriname has taken together with Guyana,” he said, according to GINA.
Since his ascension to office, the Bouterse government and the Guyana government have had personal engagements on three occasions, a good symbol of advancing integration according to the Surinamese president. Jagdeo echoed these sentiments, adding that both countries desire to strengthen ties between them. He also said it was a necessary move in today’s economic and political reality.
Jagdeo also noted that Guyana and Suriname are the only two countries in the Caribbean Community that share a common land border as all the others are separated by the sea.
As such, “we have an obligation in a microcosm to accelerate what could happen at the CARICOM level.” Already strides have been made in terms of the Caricom Single Market and Economy, free movement of people, creation of bigger market spaces and common foreign policies among others. As regards Guyana and Suriname, Jagdeo noted that “we can move this forward faster and therefore this is why I appreciate so much, the vision of the Surinamese President.”
The Tain Campus was opened in November 2000, offering two-year undergraduate Certificate programmes in Education, Diploma programmes in Accountancy, Marketing, Public Management, Social Work, English and History, and the Post-graduate Diploma in Education. In the 2001-2002 academic year the following programmes were added: Degree in Agriculture, Associate Degree in General Science with options in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics, and a Diploma in Computer Science. It has a student population of 350.
