The University of Guyana will from the new academic year offer an Associate’s Degree in Anthropology. Students with the university’s matriculation requirements can pursue this “practical degree” in a field of study which would equip them in a wide range of areas related to people and society.
Speaking to members of the media at a press conference on campus on Tuesday, Dean of the School of Education and Humanities, Al Creighton, said that Associate’s Degree in Anthropology is a totally new programme that has received the approval of the University and is ready to be offered from the new academic year which starts in September. He said that this is the first of many other Associate’s Degrees which the university will offer, to bring itself in line with the norms of universities around the region and internationally.
“We thought that anthropology is a very important subject [for Guyana],” said Creighton. He said that the university up until this point has not been concentrating on Associate’s Degrees, but on Bachelor’s Degrees and on diplomas and certificates. He added that certificates and diplomas that UG already offers are equivalent to two-year Associate’s degrees.
“The use of the term Associate’s Degree is not what the university has been engaged with so far,” Creighton said. He added the Faculty of Health Sciences had some time ago changed the name of one of its programmes to an Associate’s Degree.
“This has become the norm in the Caribbean,” he said, explaining that the Associate’s Degree is not as high as Bachelor’s Degree and the time to complete it is not as long, being two years. He said that by the end of the programme, the student would have amassed sufficient knowledge and competence in the particular area of study to allow that person to function.
The Dean said that Associate’s Degrees are also being developed in Spanish, French, Portuguese, music and fine arts. He said that those students having completed the Associate’s Degree can also move on to the Bachelor’s Degree level of study using the two-year degree as an entry qualification.
Further, he said that persons who have Bachelor’s Degrees in other areas of study can upgrade their competencies by completing an Associate’s Degree in one of the offered disciplines without having to go to school for another four years.
One of the lecturers for the Anthropology programme, Dr. Christopher Carrico, said that the Associate’s Degree will have a high proportion of field work and research. He said that Guyana is an ideal place for the study of anthropology because of the richness of the country’s interior and its peoples. “Guyana seems to be a natural,” he said, on why it is ideal to study anthropology here.
Dr. Carrico said that anthropology covers many facets: the social, cultural, linguistic and archeological. “Anthropology is a field rooted in humanities and social sciences…and [to an extent] natural sciences,” Dr. Carrico said. “[It is] trying to understand what it means to be human…the different experiences of the human culture,” he said. “It is not just the study of Amerindian culture,” he said,
The researcher, who came to Guyana from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2001, for his doctoral research, said that with Guyana now focusing on building a green economy and with the Low Carbon Development Strategy and concepts such as REDD plus (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest  Degradation), the programme has relevance. He said that people can use their knowledge in anthropology to make a difference beyond just the superficial level.
The programme, which will have a tuition cost of $200,000 per year, is said to be the first of its kind in the Caribbean. Dr. Carrico said that the cost is a little higher than the usual tuition for degrees in the School of Education and Humanities because of the high research component which entails field trips for days and even weeks in Guyana’s remote interior.
Dr. Carrico said that a person with an Associate’s Degree in anthropology will be an easy recruit for entrance to any foreign university for higher studies on the subject, because of the built-in research and field work component.
Speaking to members of the media, Head of the Department of Language and Cultural Studies within the university’s School of Education and Humanities, Alim Hosein, said anthropology will be an area of study that is useful to Guyana’s development. He said that Dr. Carrico and Dr. George Simon from the Amerindian Research Unit will be the lecturers for the courses for the Associate’s Degree in Anthropology.
The Head of Department said that the university has gone a far way in working out the details and modalities for the offer of a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology.
He said that the two-year run of the Associate’s Degree will be used to measure the interest for the development of the four-year degree in the subject. Further, Hosein said that the university is considering developing MA and MPhil. Degrees in anthropology.
Mr. Hosein urged persons who are interested in the programme to check the university’s website at www.uog.edu.gy or to call 222 4923.