FOLLOWING a simple ceremony on Monday afternoon, the University of Guyana (UG) officially unveiled a teleconferencing suite at its Turkeyen Campus.
The new facility, which was gifted to the university by Huawei Technologies, provides an audio-visual link between the institution’s Turkeyen Campus and the one at Tain, in Berbice.
Minister of Public Telecommunications, Ms Cathy Hughes told the gathering at the ceremony that the ministry has been working closely with the university, and that having signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), “We want to ensure that we are bringing more connectivity to the campus and other related facilities.”
She said that the new facility is part of a wider plan to create a higher level of digital connectivity for the country; that activities such as registering a birth and obtaining a driver’s licence are among documents that can be easily achieved Online.
Speaking specifically about the new facility, Hughes said that the connectivity is important for education, as previously, persons at Tain would have had to travel all the way to Turkeyen in order to undertake studies. “With the use of technology, we have recognised that we could connect these locations,” she said.
She said, too, that although the instructions for assembling the equipment was written in Mandarin, the staff of UG have been able to ensure the operation of the suite.
The new facility was recently installed as part of the agreement for technical cooperation between UG and the National Data Management Authority (NDMA) of the Ministry of Public Telecommunications.
During Monday’s event, persons at the Tain Campus were connected and witnessed the unveiling of the new facility.
Meanwhile, Minister Hughes noted that via the E-Governance Unit, 84 schools have been connected, mainly high schools, while 20 different educational institutions such as the Guyana School of Agriculture and Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) have been connected.
In addition, 56 Information Communications Technology (ICT) hubs have been connected across the country.