There are some projects that are transformational in nature and whose impact is felt throughout the corridors of time. One such project is the University of Guyana which in October this year will be celebrating its 50thanniversary.  University education today is assessable to all, once the requisite entry requirements are met.

This however was not the case prior to the establishment of the University of Guyana. Those were the days when only a privileged few could have had access to university education which was limited only to those whose parents were rich or those fortunate to get scholarships. The numbers however were extremely small and persons with university degrees were held in high esteem. The term “doctor politics” came about as a result of the paucity of university graduates, some of whom used their university degrees as a vehicle to attain high political office.
It was no doubt this was thinking that propelled the PPP government of the early 1960’s to establish the University of Guyana in the early 1960’s. It is popular knowledge that the University of Guyana was the brainchild of the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan.  In his book “The West on Trial” he recalled how difficult it was for his parents to get the money to send him abroad to study. His parents had to practically dispossess themselves of all the savings they accumulated just to provide him with an opportunity to study overseas.
As Dr. Jagan recalled in his book, the idea of overseas study did not come about as the fulfillment of any plan or ambition. For Dr. Jagan and his parents, it was simply outside of their financial means, not because Dr. Jagan was not bright or qualified enough but because they were too poor to afford the cost of university education. It was not that Dr. Jagan, after graduating from Queens College in 1953 did not dream of becoming a doctor. In fact, he was greatly influenced by the then district medical officer, Dr. Kennard, an Englishman whom he had greatly respected. But as he puts it, that was just wishful thinking.
Becoming a doctor was in his words “purely accidental”. The fact was that he could not have found employment, despite being armed with Oxford and Cambridge Certificates which he obtained as a student of Queens College. Those were the days when to obtain a teaching job one had to be a Christian. Many bright and educated non-Christians were forced to change their religion to become teachers.
Apart from teaching, the doors were practically closed in the public service for those in the lower rungs of the social ladder. One literally had to pull strings to get into the public service. It was only after the search for a job in the Civil Service were practically exhausted that his father yielded to a suggestion from Dr. J B Singh, a legislator at the time to send his son to study dentistry in the United States. “Jagan, Dr. Singh said, “Why waste the boy’s time? Don’t worry with the civil service; send the boy to study.”
The matter was finally settled when it was learnt that two of Dr. Jagan’s Queens College friends were about to go abroad to study dentistry in the USA.  Unlike Dr. Jagan who came from humble background, the parents of both of his friends were dentists and as such had the means of sending their children overseas to study. But for Dr. Jagan, the question was how to pay the university fees and upkeep himself while in the USA.
I thought of highlighting these facts because of what appeared to be a taken for granted approach to university education today in Guyana. The University of Guyana is producing its own doctors , lawyers and other professionals which prior to the 1960’s were only done at universities outside of Guyana. In addition, hundreds of Guyanese have been trained as doctors overseas at no cost to themselves or their parents, thanks to generous scholarship from Cuba and some other countries including India and China. Most of these are from poor and ordinary family backgrounds who were it not for these generous scholarship offerings would have been unable to realize their academic potential.
There are countless Guyanese who are today the holders of University degree and diplomas thanks to the vision of Dr. Cheddi Jagan and the PPP government of the 1960’s. The University started out with a student roll of 179 and a staff of 9 full-time lecturers. Of significance to note is that despite the turbulence of the period, there was a good record of student attendance at lectures, practical classes and tutorials. End of year examinations were held as planned and both internal and overseas examiners were highly impressed with the overall performance of the students and the high standards set by the teaching staff.
There can be no doubt that the University of Guyana has come a long way since those early years. The student population is now in the thousands and the numbers are increasing every year. Guyana is almost self-sufficient when it comes to human resource development except for a few specialized fields such as medicine and engineering.