THE National Milling Company of Guyana Inc. (NAMILCO) has recently committed to part sponsoring Ms. Deowattie Vanessa Narine of the Bishops’ High School to attend the Student Programme for Innovation in Science and Engineering (SPISE).
This programme is an intensive four-week enrichment residential summer programme run by the Caribbean

Science Foundation (CSF) for Caribbean high-school students who are gifted in Science and Engineering, and interested in studying and exploring careers in these fields.
According to Managing Director, Mr. Bert Sukhai, NAMILCO is committed to assist in developing Guyana’s youths in Science and Technology, since Science, Technology and Engineering are fields that will propel Guyana’s national development.
He noted that these fields play a critical role in the quality of the products produced by any food company, and Namilco is certified to ISO 9001 and has maintained very high standards within the local food manufacturing sector.
Mr. Sukhai attributed this success to his team of highly skilled scientists and engineers, and encouraged other companies and private sector institutions to join Namilco in this noble initiative.
Seventeen year old Ms. Narine has the unique distinction in the entire Caribbean region of receiving the award for the Best CXC Science Performance for 2012, and she was the top performer in CXC science exams amongst more than 20,000 Caribbean students who took these exams.
Not only did she receive top CXC scores of 1’s in all 14 exam subjects, but also she has superb grades, and her teachers wrote in letters of recommendation that they “will not find a more worthy recipient” and that she is a “combination of academic achievement, charisma and thoughtfulness.”
She had also demonstrated leadership in her extracurricular activities, since she is not only the top student applying from Guyana, but also one of the top 2 candidates amongst the group of 20 Caribbean students that the CSF hopes to accept this year.
The goal of the SPISE is to help address the low numbers of Caribbean students pursuing Advanced Degrees in Science and Engineering.
This programme, along with the Sagicor Visionaries Challenge (SVC) is one of CSF’s initiatives with the long-term goal of helping to diversify the economies of the Region and raise the standard of living of the people by stimulating more technology-based entrepreneurship.
SPISE is modeled after the well-known and highly successful MITES programme at MIT. This programme is of total immersion (24/7) in University-level Calculus, Physics, Biochemistry, Entrepreneurship, Mandarin, one-Caribbean Studies, and hands-on projects in Robotics and Electronics and Computer Programming.
The programme will run from July 20-August 17, 2013 at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus in Barbados.
The Ministry of Education has increased its efforts in the promotion of STEM Education through the use of the Inquiry Based Science Education and the re-introduction of the use of the Micro science Kits.