AS THE overhaul of the University of Guyana (UG) is currently underway, let me reflect on a few features of its beginnings circa 1963. Dr. Cheddi Jagan, founder of UG, endorsed the view that a university must work in tandem with national development, and that access to higher education should be available to all.
Classes commenced at the University of Guyana on October 2, 1963. Harold Drayton’s paper in the University Of Guyana Guild Of Graduates Ontario provided some useful admissions statistics.
In 1963, a total of 680 candidates applied for admission to the first year of classes, 263 obtained interviews, and 179 students became the first admittants to UG.
Among the admittants, 149 were males and 30 females, with 102 from Georgetown, and 77 from rural neighbourhoods. A supplementary breakdown indicated that 81 of these 179 students were civil servants, 54 primary and high school teachers, and 44 carried no classification. And seven full time and four part-time academic staff worked the first-year classes.
These numbers remain a persistent symbol of the birth of higher education by a colonial people. Dr. Cheddi Jagan exuded great enthusiasm to establish this University, a spectacular feat.
Once Cabinet approved the proposal for the establishment of a University on December 6, 1961, Jagan sought the assistance of academics abroad to lend a hand in this much-needed project. Here are a few examples of his unflagging efforts to make university education a reality in Guyana; and to let history note that it was a colonial people that created a university in the colonial era.
January 4, 1962: Jagan communicated with Harold Drayton in Ghana requesting his assistance.
January 13, 1962: Drayton response was positive, and he indicated that he wished to return to Guyana immediately, as the University of Ghana showed great proclivity to release him earlier than what his contract required.
December 17, 1962: Jagan asked Horace Davis whether it would be possible to recruit lecturers in 23 fields.
January 10, 1963: Jagan wrote to Professor Paul Baran of Stanford University, Professor Joan Robinson, Cambridge University, Professor Lancelot Hogben, Birmingham University, and Professor David Glass, University of London for assistance in staff recruitment.
January 10, 1963: Jagan wanted to have Joan Robinson of Cambridge University as the first Vice-Chancellor. This did not happen, as the first Vice-Chancellor was Lancelot Hogben.
The inauguration of UG was on October 1, 1963. Mr. Brindley Benn delivered Dr. Jagan’s speech, as both he and his wife Mrs. Janet Jagan were unavoidably out of the country. A few main points of Dr. Jagan’s inauguration speech follow:
1. The PPP Government pioneered an educational revolution in the 1953-1963 years. County scholarships increased from 12 to 24 in 1953 and in excess of 200 free secondary school places in 1963. Secondary schools increased from 2 in 1953 to 10 in 1963. Trained teachers rose annually from 30 to 150.
2. The University must provide trained human resources for national development.
3. The entire education system with the University at the top, must define values and goals for Guyana, and to transmit these values and achieve the goals.
4. Education is the most important variable in accomplishing swift economic and technological development, and creating a social order upholding the values of freedom, social justice, and equal opportunity.
5. The University has a responsibility to construct a national consciousness and a national identity.
Notwithstanding all these niceties, there was a dark side to UG’s history. In the months preceding the University’s inauguration and in its first year of life, several local and regional newspapers, and some U.S. journals, referred to UG as ‘Jagan’s night school’. Another dark side was the local political party resistance to UG’s survival.
UG’s presence today, largely a product of Dr. Jagan’s resoluteness, is a noteworthy testimony to the heroic people who remain firm in their commitment to higher education in Guyana.
