The Alliance For Change (AFC) yesterday took its campaign ‘Action Plan’ to the University of Guyana (UG) Turkeyen Campus, where it called on the institution to step up research in order to play a bigger role in economic and social development.
Addressing a gathering of about 60 persons, presidential candidate and party chairman Khemraj Ramjattan said the university is the “cradle” out which the jobs the Action Plan calls for could spring.
“A tertiary institution of this nature must… be that cradle that could produce the development we all want. But more than that, not only the economic skills, the entrepreneurial skills, but so too it must produce the well-rounded citizen that could understand their neighbour, that could understand what sometimes creates the phobias that cause the destabilisation and sometimes the disaffection between the various ethnicities,” Ramjattan said.
He added that the institution must do the necessary research to “further the frontiers of knowledge as regards the development process.” That, he said, is what the AFC would like to see since it is vitally important to create the quality of people needed.
The people’s attitude to each other needs to be changed in order to lessen the tension among them, Ramjattan said, while adding that this played a huge role in development and growth.
“I feel that our students, our academia in this institution have such a huge role to play in doing the research … that can take us there. I want our university… to play that role in ensuring that the other aspects of development and growth be present and that you play an active part in creating the groundwork for that happening,” he added.
During a question and answer period immediately following Ramjattan’s presentation, a student asked how an AFC government intended to fund the university’s research role.
“It is part and parcel of our programme that after the elections would have been completed … lots more in relation to funding would have to be put into this university.
But more than that we also feel that because of the nature of the treasury… we feel that there must be other cheaper methods like online programmes that students could get involved in and also bringing in the experts within the diaspora through… altruistic approaches.”
The AFC team, which also included Vice-Chairperson and prime ministerial candidate Sheila Holder and UG lecturer Dr Rishee Thakur, was also questioned on plans to address Guyana’s image overseas; sustaining entrepreneurship; and alliances with other entities.
