GOVERNMENT has secured a loan of US$13.3M from the World Bank to boost teachers’ training and strengthen the University of Guyana’s medical programme to help it regain its accreditation.
The agreement was one of two loans signed in the boardroom of the Ministry of Finance by subject Minister, Winston Jordan and World Bank’s Senior Country Officer for Guyana, Suriname and Belize, Pierre Nadji. Also present at the signing ceremony were Minister within the Ministry of Finance, Jaipaul Sharma; Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry; Governor of the Bank of Guyana, Dr Gobind Ganga; Finance Secretary, Dr. Hector Butts; Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Professor Dr. Ivelaw Griffith and Dr Barbara Reynolds respectively; and acting General Manager, National Insurance Scheme, Holly Greeves.

Director of Projects, Ministry of Finance, Tarachand Balgobin explained that the loan which falls under the Education Sector Improvement Programme, Guyana will benefit from US$13.3M. He explained, however, that the loan will be split to accommodate two aspects of that sector.
The Ministry of Education is to develop a new curriculum aimed at enhancing teacher training, capacity building and institutional development within the Ministry, while the other aspect of the loan will assist the University of Guyana (UG) with regaining its accreditation for its medical programme.
In fact, Balgobin told reporters that the loan will be used to build a new medical health sciences building for UG while supporting the institution in its medicine curricula, “So the medical programme at UG could come back and be accredited as it used to be.” Balgobin noted too that the loan agreement signed on Thursday follows another loan being implemented under the Secondary Education Reform Programme where Secondary Schools are being built and teachers are being trained.
“On the same programme, called the UG Science and Technology programme, there is a lot of improvement in four of the laboratories of the UG. This loan supports those other loans and is also supporting other initiatives in the education sector.” The university’s accreditation was lost in July 2015, following the institution’s delay in submitting a report on the school’s progress to the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP).

The regional body had reportedly granted temporary accreditation under certain conditions to medical schools in the Caribbean. UGSM was granted short-term accreditation for the periods 2008 to 2009; 2009 to 2012; and 2013 to 2015. These were followed by visits by the authority in 2012 and 2013. The Guyana Chronicle has learnt that during a visit prior to the revocation of the accreditation, the authority had found that some of the issues that were highlighted on its previous visit had not been addressed. The issues at reference primarily had to do with infrastructural improvements, a review of curriculum, and the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) among the Ministry of Public Health, UGSM, and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) for funding of the school. UGSM was reportedly advised at the time to address the issues and submit a progress report, so that the authority could return this year to review its accreditation.
Late last year ahead of another visit by Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Dr Emanuel Cummings had said that UG was foreseeing the wider accreditation of other health programmes offered by the university, as expansion plans—which include the addition of a spanking new World Bank- funded modern faculty building costing US$6.9 — are being considered.

At the time Dr. Cummings had said that the road to re-accreditation entailed the submission of a “self-study”, a process which constitutes the completion of several databases, which was done in June of last year. Dr. Cummings explained that there are 144 standards which make up the databases, and areas assessed include the medical programme itself; the resources at hand; the teaching facilities at the faculty; internship, including the facilities where students operate at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), as well as the medical school’s relations to other branches of the wider university, including the personnel division and the bursary.
Only recently, the government signed an agreement with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) for the enhancement of skills in the education sector. Balgobin noted that with the signing of the loans, Guyana is in a better position to advance its education sector, more particularly so with the birthing of the oil and gas sectors here. The Ministry of Finance said the World Bank’s current programme here of for the fiscal years 2016- 2018 focuses on enhancing resilience of selected infrastructure and build disaster risk management capacities, setting up the foundation for high quality education and supporting private sector development. Recently, the bank announced a significant increase in concessional resources to Guyana of approximately US$90M and the government intends to earmark the sums for the improvement of the Linden- Soesdyke Highway, technical assistance to the emerging oil and gas sector and policy based lending among others.