Home News “We have doubled the number of Indigenous students’ enrollment since 2020” –...
…says UG continues to implement policies to include Indigenous students
With the multicultural ethnic background at the University of Guyana (UG), it has been recorded that the tertiary institution has enrolled twice the number of Indigenous students since 2020.
This information was revealed by the Vice-Chancellor of the educational facility, Dr. Paloma Mohamed Martin during an exclusive interview with the Guyana Times on Monday.
“We have double the number of Indigenous students now than we had, I would say, four years ago, they were amongst the most likely to not graduate on time before that period.”
However, this publication understands that this increased number is not only due to natural growth but also through numerous initiatives undertaken by the institution.
“I want to say a couple of things, though, with regard to the education of Indigenous students at the University. When we looked at our intake and graduation rates over the last, I would say, 15 years or so, we recognized a couple of things—that most of our students, I would say over 95%, were from mainly the coastal areas. And we wanted to ensure that there was a kind of uniformity for most people.”
She expressed that from this revelation, UG realized that there are numerous difficulties Indigenous students face, which have been taken into consideration.
“So, the first thing is that they are underrepresented in the university population. And this, of course, has to do with the difficulties they face, both in terms of matriculating, meeting the requirements of certain programs, and being able to study. What we also recognized was that we have to treat these students as if they’re foreign students, meaning that we have to put a support system around them in the same way that we do for foreign students.”
The main reason for implementing these measures is that Indigenous students are typically coming out of their comfort zone and once they are supported, they do exceptionally well.
“We looked at that and said, what’s happening with these students? And it just has to do with the kinds of stipends they were getting, even their diet. You know, they really did need somebody, a community, to put their arms around them and treat them as if they were at home. And it took us a while to understand our role in that. So, the most significant thing is the Indigenous section.”
Meanwhile, in terms of the enrollment of Amerindian students at the University and how it has evolved over the years, it was understood that UG has made significant strides.
One of the initiatives introduced since 2016, when she became Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Philanthropy, Alumni, and Civic Engagement, was the creation of a student support fund. The funds raised catered to students who were facing challenges at certain points in their lives.
This fund stemmed from the desire to ensure that students weren’t dropping out due to minor reasons.
“We didn’t want students to drop out for minor reasons, just because somebody stole their laptop, or they needed a month’s rent, or something like that, which was really a big thing for most people.”
Professor Mohamed added that for some people, it’s a life-changing event, and for others, it’s a small thing that they could overcome. So, UG started raising funds for this, and what she noticed was that quite several Indigenous students were seeking support. That’s when they started analyzing what kinds of problems these students were facing.
Meanwhile, she explained more about the implementation of scholarships.
“Upon realizing what the problems were, we put a couple of things in place. One, we continued to raise funds for Indigenous students, but also to source scholarships for them. And so, we have quite a few personal scholarships that people fund specifically for Indigenous students.”
“We have encouraged individuals and companies to give scholarships to Indigenous students to help them. We also started offering other types of support from our student support funds, which we raised independently. But I think the most significant thing among those measures is ensuring that we created a policy for underserved communities.”
