NATIONS University is working towards introducing 12 new programmes from February 2019, in a partnership with the University of Bedfordshire, UK.

Nations is currently in the process of getting all the necessary measures in place as they await approval from the National Accreditation Council (NAC) in Guyana.

“These are almost all Master’s programmes in public health, finance, law, education, journalism, psychology, a whole variety. The only thing left is the approval from the NAC here in Guyana, but we’ve dealt with them before so it’s a process we have to go through but that’s the last stage and then we hope to offer all of these programmes from February. I’m 99 per cent confident that we will get approval in the next couple of weeks,” explained Director of Nations University, Dr Brian O’Toole.

Nations University already has an ongoing partnership with the University of Bedfordshire where Bedfordshire’s Master’s in Business Administration, Education and Law programmes are already being offered.

The University of Bedfordshire is one of a number of UK universities Nations University has partnerships with — the others being the University of London and Cambridge University.
Six representatives from the University of Bedfordshire, from the Journalism and Psychology Departments were in Guyana on Tuesday to check out the readiness of Nations to offer these new programmes.

“They’ve sent six persons here because we’re introducing these 12 new programmes. They are here now to make sure that everything is kosher and that we have the capacity, that kind of stuff. They have to look at the CVs (of potential lecturers) and see if they are of the calibre to teach a Master’s programme but they’re very happy,” O’Toole related.

Bedfordshire’s Professor of Media and Criminal Justice Jon Silverman said the team is pleased with what the members have seen in Guyana.

“Having spent the day at Nations, we’re very impressed by what we’ve seen and talking to Brian we think it’s going to be a very fruitful partnership. The University of Bedfordshire has a number of partnerships around the world and it’s very exciting to establish this partnership with Nations University, because, as far as I’m aware, it’s the first we’ll have in South America,” Silverman noted.

Isabella McMurray, Bedfordshire’s Course Leader of Psychology reiterated the university’s pleasure to work with Nations.

The programmes are expected to cost US$7000, which, Dr O’Toole said will be all-inclusive given that it will cover the provision of materials as well as exam fees for the course.
Lecturers for the programmes will be provided by Nations University which has already identified a number of persons.

“We’ve identified a number but we’re still looking for others because there may be people that we haven’t thought of asking, but the calibre of people that we have so far is very good. So applications will be up and running just as soon as NAC says ‘yes’, that would be to the next six to eight weeks,” Dr O’ Toole said.