THE University of Guyana (UG) does not get the kind of credit it deserves for building a nation over the past 50 years, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Dr. Paloma Mohamed said Wednesday.

The Chairperson of UG’s 50th anniversary Planning Committee said so at a presentation ceremony in the Education Lecture Theatre (ELT) at the Turkeyen Campus, where the theme and logo for the occasion were unveiled.
Having been established in 1963, UG is now celebrating 50 years of existence, themed ‘Honouring the past, moulding the present, transforming the future.’
This theme was submitted by Ganesh Somrah while the winning logo was the submission of Wayne Cheong Kee-You.
The competitions for the theme and logo were launched in February this year and attracted numerous interests.
UG Public Relations Officer, Ms. Paulette Paul, said 28 entries were received for the theme and 30 for the logo.
Mohamed said the 50th Anniversary celebrations will start officially on October 1, commemorating the first day of classes 50 years ago.
Commemorative events
She said, on this 2013 day, one year of celebratory activities will begin with commemorative events such as conferences, cultural events and publications, among others.
Mohamed advised, further, that her major role as Chairperson of the Planning Cmmittee is to try and galvanise public spirit to the university, because it is operating in times which are very adverse to fund-raising.
As such, she said a major goal of the committee is to raise an endowment fund and also get people interested in the university.
She added that, if persons cannot donate funds, they can contribute in other ways, even contributing memories in the forms of stories and old photographs, relating to the university.
Mohamed emphasised that the importance of the university in the last 50 years is something which has not been highlighted often in the media, adding that “the University of Guyana does not get the kind of credit it deserves for actually building a nation over the past 50 years.”
She posited that UG creates over 80 percent of the workforce in this country but it is operating on limited resources.
“So, if this university is under resourced, it means that the people coming out of here will be weak and they filter out into every institution in this country and then we have a weak society and country. I mean it’s not rocket science,” Mohamed argued.

UG qualifications
However, she said this has not been so as UG’s history has been “quite lustrous”, noting that there are people operating in various fields all over the world with UG qualifications.
As such, Mohamed urged all to “spread the message of hope for UG, of a transformed university over the next 50 years and also for a really deeper understanding of the issues that created the university in the first place and the issues that will help to transform the university in the next 50 years.”
UG Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jacob Opadeyi, while congratulating the winners of the theme and logo competitions, said both winning entries are fitting for the occasion.
In relation to the theme, he said that “honouring the past” is very appropriate since UG has a very strong past, from which it is still benefitting.
Additionally, Opadeyi said “modelling the present” captures exactly what the university is going through at present, as it has to go through that in order to “transform the future.”
With regard to the logo, he observed that it consists of various shades of green and stated that, just as a plant starts at one shade of green and changes its greenness when supplied with nutrients, UG needs “nutrients” to maintain its “greenness.”
He also thanked those who won for participating in the contests and remarked that the rivalry has given persons the opportunity to explore their ideas.