UG Tain Campus to offer more courses, cater for students from remote regions

The University of Guyana is working assiduously to add new diverse programmes to its Tain Campus in Berbice, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Paloma Mohamed-Martin said the institution’s aim to centralise the campus to serve Guyanese in the region as well as remote areas in Regions Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo).
She noted that this will be done in phases, starting with the launch of a Marine Institute, that will benefit the local agriculture and oil and gas sectors.
This new institute will allow students at the Tain Campus to specialise in Marine Biology, River Systems, Marine Economy and Porting, among others.
As a result, students will be engaged in environmental studies, gain immense technical knowledge and gather data that is based on experiments.

“It’s going to be a full campus and we have to put things there that are really organic to the environment, so just like how people travel to Georgetown to study, they have to travel to Tain to study certain things,” Mohamed-Martin stated.
The Vice Chancellor explained that the investments being poured into the Tain Campus follows suit with Government’s developmental plans for the region.
This includes its plan to develop a $90 million aquaculture farm in the region to ramp up the production of brackish water fish and shrimp, build-out of road networks, construction of a 10,000-seat stadium at Palmyra and a level five regional hospital, among others.

“We’re not only thinking of what is there, we’re thinking of how the Tain Campus and how Berbice is situated. The President has spoken about the Golden corridor so, Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazil…one of the things that was very significant about that is that what Suriname university doesn’t have is requiring from us,” the Vice Chancellor explained.

“Outside of the golden corridor where Berbice is situated, you have Orealla, you have Region Eight, Region Nine. Once they start to open up that road that is being talked about to come through the back there, you really have those students who we think are underserved in Regions Eight and Nine because it’s difficult. They have to come to Georgetown, that’s going to be easier for them,” Mohamed-Martin added.
The University of Guyana was established in April 1963 and began its operations on October 1 of the same year at Queen’s College compound. This was prior to moving to the Turkeyen Campus in 1970.
The University of Guyana expanded in 2000 with the addition of the Berbice Campus at Tain, Corentyne. The facility aimed to pave the way for numerous Berbicians to acquire a tertiary education in the county.
In October 2016, as part of a broader re-organisation, SEES was transformed into the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences (FEES). As the University advanced, the School of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation was created in the year 2017.