University of Guyana

• Author: Duke Pollard
• Profession: Sitting senior judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the highest appellate municipal court of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
• Pages: 42-48

42 THE CARICOM SYSTEM

3

THE UNIVERSITY OF GUYANA

Despite the noble motivations and lofty aspirations which might have informed the

decision to establish the University of Guyana as a separate entity, there is a lingering

perception that the creation of this body was the institutional expression of an attempt

on the part of the administration in British Guiana to distance itself from regional

integration efforts. At the material time, the University College of the West Indies

(UCWI) located at the Mona campus in Jamaica was the outstanding Tertiary level

institution in the Commonwealth Caribbean, and much of its teaching staff and policy-

making officials were drawn from extra-regional sources in the Commonwealth. In the

premises, genuine reservations were entertained by the administration in British Guiana

about the ability of UCWI to generate the kind and quality of intellectual ferment to

sustain a truly indigenous integration initiative and address the developmental needs of

British Guiana. But how the establishment of the University of Guyana with little

known financial resources and considerably less intellectual resources was expected to

resolve this issue remains an unanswered question.

The governing body of the University is the Board of Governors with power to do

or provide for any act or thing in relation to the University which it considers necessary

or expedient to do or provide. The Board of Governors consists of the Chancellor, the

Principal and Vice-Chancellor, two persons nominated by the Academic Board, two

persons nominated by the Guild of Graduates and such number of persons as may be

appointed by the competent Minister. The other Authorities of the University are the

Academic Board and the Guild of Graduates. The Academic Board is competent, subject

to the control and approval of the Board of Governors, to regulate and superintend the

education and discipline of the students of the University. Both the Board of Governors

and the Academic Board are competent to act notwithstanding any vacancy in their

membership.

The Board of Governors is required to make statutes prescribing or regulating, as

the case may be, its powers and duties as well as the composition, constitution, powers

and duties of other Authorities of the University and all other matters relative to the

Board of Governors and other Authorities and to the objects of the University which it

may think proper to prescribe or regulate.

The University of Guyana is both a teaching and examining body and, subject to

the Act and Statutes, enjoys wide powers to confer degrees and academic distinctions

on persons pursuing a prescribed course of study and passing examinations or tests

prescribed by the University. The University may provide instruction in any branch of

learning it thinks fit and may provide for research and the advancement and