Guyana positioned to earn $$$ from education tourism – Texila President

Mar 24, 2017 News

---

…says Texila University willing to lend support to Guyana nursing programme

Education Tourism could be a big thing for Guyana. This conclusion has been reached by President and Founder of the Texila American University (TAU), Mr. Saju Bhaskar.

Bhaskar, during a recent interview, shared his conviction that Guyana is well positioned to embrace such a path since according to him, “there is a study that says that every foreign student that comes into a country for a medical education spends no less than US$10,000, to US$15,000 per year.”
“So if I have 1,000 students in my programme we are talking US$15 million [being plugged] into the economy per year.” He considered that the intake of his school is not far from helping Guyana to achieve this magnitude of revenue.
Currently the school has an intake of close to 600 students. Medicine has been the flagship programme for the university which first opened its doors here in 2010. But according to the TAU President the school also has plans to introduce several other programmes that could help to advance education tourism in this part of the world.
As he stressed the importance of such a move he noted, “Education tourism has had a very big impact on many countries. There are many countries in the Caribbean that are already dependent on education in the form of medical schools as part of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”
He added, “Australia has education as its second highest earner of GDP after mining…I think Canada and America put together have got US$21 billion in funds from students.”
TAU is an offshore private medical school owned by the Texila American University Limited – Hong Kong. TAU recently completed a US$10 million campus at Providence, East Bank Demerara and the goal is to soon accommodate some 1,000 students from various parts of the globe including India, Africa, the United States, Canada and Guyana.
Guyana was chosen to accommodate the university in South America since according to Bhaskar the cost of living was seen as affordable to its students. “We wanted to look at an affordable destination with affordable housing. And also Guyana is out of the hurricane zone… So Guyana is a naturally blessed destination,” emphasised Bhaskar as he added, “I have read stories where schools in Belize and Grenada had to close their operations and shift to some other island and resume after three months because the buildings were broken down or taken away by hurricanes.”
Although the school in its early stages had not attracted too many Caribbean students, this trend is starting to reverse. This, according to Bhaskar, is due to the university’s introduction of a quality nursing programme.
Since Guyana has over the years been offering a free nursing course, Bhaskar said that it was not expected that TAU’s nursing programme would attract too many students. In fact the programme had initially seen an enrolment of a mere two students. However, he noted that the numbers are now increasing.
“We have studies from St Lucia, Antigua and Jamaica. They are coming to Guyana which I think is a reverse trend because when you offer a quality programme I think people will be attracted…People from all over the Region would be attracted to Guyana for that matter.”
He disclosed that the TAU’s nursing programme is one that is geared towards embracing American standards. “Our primary intention for our nursing programme is for our students to pass the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX),” said Bhaskar.
NCLEX is a standardised exam that each state board nursing uses to determine whether or not a candidate is prepared for entry-level nursing practice. Added to this, Bhaskar said that students are also prepared for the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing School (CGFS), an entry examination for entry into nursing schools in the United States.
“So we have a higher quality programme,” boasted Bhaskar as he noted that “our curriculum is available anytime for review.”
So convinced he is of the quality of the nursing programme offered, Bhaskar said that his university is ready and willing to lend support to the Ministry of Public Health to help review its nursing programme.
The national nursing programme has been producing dismal results, which has caused Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence to call for an overhaul of the programme, in order to reverse the failing trend which translated to 23 passes out of a total of 179 candidates at its most recent sitting.
“We can even train nurses at our campus if the Government is willing to partner with us and we can also help them in terms of curriculum development because we have a fantastic team of experts. I think we have the best faculty for nursing; all of our nursing graduates are Masters and Doctorate holders,” said Bhaskar.
The vast majority of its nursing faculty are from the Philippines which, according to Bhaskar, is known as the world’s leading nurse supplier destination.
“If you go to the UK or go to the US or even the Middle East, all the Saudi Arabian hospitals, all the hospitals in Dubai, they are filled with mostly nurses from the Philippines and some from India and a few other countries in South Asia,” he asserted as he emphasised the high quality of nursing programme offered by TAU.

---

---