The University of Guyana is Guyana’s sole national higher education institution. It was established in April 1963 with the following Mission: “To discover, generate, disseminate, and apply knowledge of the highest standard for the service of the community, the nation, and of all mankind within an atmosphere of academic freedom that allows for free and critical enquiry.” It began its operations on October 1 of the same year at Queens College compound, the nation’s premier secondary school, before moving to the Turkeyen Campus in 1970. At first, programmes were confined to the Arts, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences. A Faculty of Education was created in 1967, and this was followed by the Faculty of Technology in 1969 (now Faculty of Engineering and Technology), the Faculty of Agriculture (1977) and Health Sciences (1981), the latter as an outgrowth of Natural Sciences. The Institute for Adult and Continuing Education began as an extra-mural arm, in 1976. In 1996 the Institute was renamed the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE). A Forestry Unit was established in 1987 and it subsequently became part of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, and in 2003 the Faculties of Arts and Education merged to become the School of Education and Humanities (now Faculty of Education and Humanities). Additionally, the turn of the Millennium saw the formation of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES), born of the merger of the Geography Department and the Environmental Studies Unit. Also created were the Biodiversity Centre, which is pertinent to the activities pursued by SEES and the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, and a Centre for Information Technology (CIT), which serves the entire university. The University of Guyana expanded in 2000 with the addition of the Berbice Campus at Tain, Corentyne. In October 2016, as part of a broader reorganisation, SEES was transformed into the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences (FEES). And in 2
