History
Cheddi Jagan, then Premier of British Guiana, considered that the University of the West Indies, to which his government had contributed since 1948, was not meeting the demand of his countrymen for higher education. On January 4, 1962, Jagan wrote to Harold Drayton, then in Ghana, to ask him to seek the advice of W.E.B. DuBois on starting a new university.
Drayton returned to British Guiana in December 1962, and it was on his advice that Jagan wrote to socialist scholars in the United Kingdom and United States, including Joan Robinson at the University of Cambridge, Paul Baran at Stanford University, and Lancelot Hogben at Birmingham to involve them in the recruitment of staff.
The University opened on the grounds of Queen's College in late 1963. Its first chancellor was Edgar Mortimer Duke and its first Principal and Vice-Chancellor was the British biologist and mathematician, Lancelot Hogben.
Read more about this topic: University Of Guyana
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