– New GTI building can accommodate more students, new programmes

EVER since she joined the Government Technical Institute (GTI) 22 years ago as a lecturer, Renita Crandon Duncan has always heard talks of a new three to five-storey building and even saw drawings at one point, but it is only now, during her tenure as principal, that the project is finally becoming a reality.

Imagine her excitement recently at being able to witness the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project between Ken Subraj Investments and the Ministry of Education.

Having seen the project move from ‘principal to principal’, Duncan couldn’t be happier that the modern, state-of-the-art facility will come to fruition under her tenure, especially being a woman at the helm of Guyana’s leading technical institute.

“There’s that feeling of accomplishment that I am able to do it. It’s something that I am proud of; to see that under my tenure, I can be able to have that,” she expressed during an interview with Pepperpot Magazine.
The new building, valued at $140M, will be constructed within the school’s compound at Woolford Avenue, and the student population will have a chance to be expanded with the availability of more space and technical equipment. At the moment, it is difficult for the institution to function at its optimum capacity due to a limitation of space, especially considering COVID-19.

“Having this new building is going to open up a lot of possibilities now because we will be able to have more students. Many of them are gearing towards engineering, and we can only take x amount, so we may now be able to have parallel classes and be able to satisfy the needs that are out there,” Duncan shared, adding, “We normally put a limit to the class numbers. For example, in a Civil Engineering class, we had to put a limit of 36 because even though in the past we had a class of 60 students.”

The new building will also give the institution more scope to be able to introduce new programmes. “We have some programmes in mind. We do a diploma in Science, but it is more Chemistry based, so we want to introduce the option of a Physics-based programme too and Environmental Studies. Those are some other components we want to add.”

Furthermore, Duncan related that GTI has also started looking at the possibility of introducing bio and geotechnical engineering, which are new areas in Guyana that have been emerging and trending.
Meanwhile, once completed, the building will boast an oil-and-gas laboratory, lecture theatres, smart classrooms, a welfare unit, and an administrative block, among several other amenities. At the signing ceremony, Project Manager Richard Mahase had related that Ken Subraj credits GTI for his many successes as it was the institution that moulded him.

Speaking with this publication subsequently, 81-year-old Subraj expressed that GTI is the institution that he credits with, giving him a good start in life. “I always say to my guys, let’s give back to our community. We gave back a lot to our community here in New York, so I would like to give back something to where I went to school.”

Subraj, who was born in a family of cattle and rice farmers, attended school at Bel Air Primary in the colonial system. At 15, he went to GTI, where he studied for five years and worked on the side at different places, including at Bookers Garage, Family Stores, Bookers Sugar Estate in Ogle and Public Works Department in Water Street.

On June 20, 1961, he left Guyana for London to further qualify himself and worked as a motor mechanic while attending school simultaneously. “I went to what is now the University of London and did an engineering course called Diploma in Mechanical and Production Engineering. I finished in 1967 as what is now called the Valedictorian,” he shared.

He then returned to Guyana and continued to work with the Public Works Department before moving on to the then Demerara Bauxite Company. Now based in Queen’s, New York, Subraj, the eldest of all of his siblings, works for Zara Realty, a Subraj family business.

The family owns and manages over 3,500 apartments which are housed in about 46 buildings, and is now in the process of constructing a nine-storey building that is to house another 200 apartments.