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UG Bursar underscores importance of distance education
The graduating class of 2012 – with lecturers and other officials of IDCE
Distance Education must be seen as an integral part of Guyana’s educational policy, progress and development, said Bursar of the University of Guyana, Mr. John Seeram, recently.
He was delivering the feature address to young graduates of the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE) in New Amsterdam where he also called for the establishment of more IDCE centres across Berbice and the country as a whole.
“It [Distance Education] assumes added significance given the fact of our widely scattered coastal settlements and riverain and interior locations in this vast land of ours,” he stated.
Distance education or distance learning is a mode of delivering education and instruction, often on an individual basis, to students who are not physically present in a traditional setting such as a classroom. Distance learning provides access to learning when the source of information and the learners are separated by time and distance, or both.
In Guyana, IDCE, an extra-mural arm of the University of Guyana (UG) has established centres across Guyana, including New Amsterdam, Linden, Anna Regina, Lethem and Mabaruma in Region One and offers numerous educational [foundation] courses in various disciplines.
“The defining feature of distance learning is that the individual needs not actually attend university in person.”
Study at a distance suits people for a variety of reasons. Seeram stated that it affords convenience for people with family commitments or with a job technologically advanced world. He said that Guyana may soon have an oil industry and courses should be offered to meet the needs of that industry.
He added that it would be unfortunate if foreign nationals would have to come to Guyana and work on the oil rigs because Guyanese are not knowledgeable in that field.
Alliance For Change executive member, Nigel Hughes, also emphasized the need for training. He said that efforts should be made to train citizens so that they could benefit from projects being executed locally.
Hughes believes that the Trade Unions have to lead this protest since it is more of a national issue than a political one. He said that the persons who signed the contracts agreeing to the exclusion of Guyanese should do the honourable thing and pack their bags and leave.
Social activist, Frederick Kissoon, who led the protestors in chants “No Guyanese…No Chinese”, “Guyana belongs to Guyanese”, “No Guyanese…No Marriott” said that he had predicted that once a dictatorship is allowed to take excesses, it goes into bizarre directions.
He said that it is bizarre that a sovereign State contracts a company that does not hire locals. Kissoon, a former lecturer at the University of Guyana, said that the disintegration of communism led to nationalist movements around the world. He is convinced that no other sovereign nation would see the exclusion of its citizens from a local project.
Kissoon said that if Guyanese could allow this atrocity then Guyanese would allow anything. He believes that this is the time for A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change, the two Opposition parties in the National Assembly that hold a one-seat majority to confront the government and set things right for Guyanese.
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