UG preparing for partial re-opening of Turkeyen, Berbice Campus

Nov 22, 2020 News

The University of Guyana – Turkeyen Campus2

Kaieteur News – The University of Guyana (UG) is seeking to soon physically re-open their Turkeyen and Berbice campuses to a limited student population soon in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Kaieteur News learnt that 95% of the university’s classes are currently being conducted online.
However, the physical re-opening will see students whose classes require some amount of practical work being able to access face-to-face classes. This fraction of students includes engineering students and those studying the sciences which may require utilizing the laboratories and other facilities.
Vice-Chancellor of UG, Dr. Paloma Mohamed-Martin, recently disclosed to HGPTV Nightly News, that one-third of the students would utilize the laboratories, while the remainder watches online in the “Zoom rooms”. This process will be rotated to ensure everyone accesses the laboratories, according to the Vice-Chancellor.
She also disclosed that the university is working on acquiring the physical infrastructure and protocols necessary for the safe re-opening of the campuses.
This, she said, includes an on-campus testing centre, sanitization utilities and personal protective equipment for the returning students.
In describing the university’s efforts thus far, Mohamed-Martin said: “It is a tremendous amount of logistical work which the university of course has never had to deal with before and we are working with [you know] basically the same resources that we were working with before.”
Further, she stressed that the preparation process has been difficult because several staffers would have tested positive for the novel Coronavirus at the university. She disclosed that there was even a death. Various departments where persons tested positive were forced to have staff isolate themselves, which hindered work being done.
“The university is not divorced from the country. It is part of the country and everything that the rest of the country faces, the university faces,” she expressed.
Meanwhile, the Vice-Chancellor also boasted that things have been going well for the university since re-opening on November 2.
It was expected to re-open since October 12, but the university had postponed the opening to November 2, catering for more applicants.
The University, in a press release, had stated that if they followed through with the October 12 opening, many prospective students whose applications were still being processed would have been placed at a disadvantage and they would also be forced into a late start on their classes.
There was also a backlog of over 2,600 applications resulting from a delay in documents needing to be verified and there was also a late appearance of some examination results.

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