Guyana’s new Council of Legal Education (CLE) law school is expected to strengthen the country’s position as a regional centre for higher education and professional training. Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, described the institution as part of a wider vision to attract Caribbean students to Guyana.
Speaking at the sod turning ceremony at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen Campus, Nandlall said that the institution should not be viewed as a facility solely for Guyanese students, noting that its regional mandate was an important consideration during negotiations with the Council of Legal Education.
“We were very careful in our negotiations not to ever create the impression that this is going to be an insular institution. It’s not a Guyanese institution. While it will be located in Guyana, it is a regional institution to serve the people of the region and to be administered by the regional council administering legal education,” he said.
The AG continued, “We had to undergo a particular process at the council.It was not handed to us on a platter. Strict criteria were laid out. A feasibility study was requested where we had to show how the law school is going to be viable.And not viable for the first and second year, but viable as a long term venture.”
The law school is also expected to become part of a growing network of specialised education and training facilities being developed in Guyana.
Nandlall pointed to investments in oil and gas, hospitality, nursing and teacher training, saying these institutions are also being developed with a regional outlook.
The Attorney General said the push is taking place against the backdrop of major changes in Caribbean education and growing demand for professional training.
“The demands for legal education have skyrocketed over the last five decades,” Nandlall said, noting that universities and overseas institutions are now offering LLB programmes in countries across the region.
He said the expansion of legal education at the undergraduate level has placed additional pressure on the region’s existing professional law schools, making the establishment of another institution necessary.
“We have to prepare for the next 50 years.This law school will be here for a very, very long time,” he said. “It is the realization of the aspirations of generations of Guyanese,” Nandlall said.
The development could also broaden Guyana’s role in judicial and continuing legal education. Nandlall said the Government intends to work with the Caribbean Court of Justice to establish a home for the CCJ Academy of Law on the same eight-acre site.
“We hope that judicial training, legal education, professional continuing legal education will be done from this facility,” he said.
The proposed academy would further expand the site’s potential as a regional centre for legal training, bringing together professional legal education, judicial training and continuing education.