The University of Guyana (UG) is appealing for bigger investments in order to effectively ‘prepare thousands of Guyanese’ for the country’s emerging Oil and Gas (O&G) sector.
So says the institution’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Ivelaw Griffith, who this past week lamented the state of affairs, as he appealed to the corporate community, including oil companies, civil society and government for increased investments in the tertiary institution.
“I want to recommend that you embrace the proposition that we have a University of Guyana that we are going to have to invest in appropriately; we being the society, we being the partners at the international level, who think, who are convinced that this is a worthy journey on which to enjoin,” Professor Griffith said.
The University Administrator was at the time addressing the Guyana International Petroleum Exhibition and Summit (GIPEX) held at the Marriott Hotel from February 7 to 9.
He was speaking to the institution’s preparations, in order to meet the projected skills demand as a result of the emerging industry and was adamant the University is not going to be able to “make the efforts and have the outcomes (desired), if we don’t want to invest.”
Investment, he proffered, “needs to come from the government of Guyana, it needs to come from the industry partners, it needs to come from the citizenry.”
Energy Investment Plan
He told the industry executives, delegates and government representatives at GIPEX 2018, “in context of (UG) just sitting there, we got to figure out what the investment will be to make these all happen.”
The University currently has a team working on putting together an energy investment plan and a number of industry partners have already begun collaborating with the University, he said.
Professor Griffith identified Schlumberger, Haliburton, BakerHughes (a GE Company), ExxonMobil, and TechnipFMC – having already employed 10 University Graduates.
The University Vice Chancellor disclosed too that TechnipFMC has committed to directly employing from UG 20 more specialized persons by year-end.
That ExxonMobil Tier I contractor last year contacted the University to recruit the engineers—six mechanical, two electrical and two civil engineers.
Each of the contracted University graduates has since been sent to Brazil by TechnipFMC for further training.
IT would be very prudent to put additional training facilities at UG, rather than a hodge-podge all over the place. GoG should facilitate and encourage this. Plenty of money available for training and many international firms that specialize in it.