Five months after the University of Guyana’s School of Entrepreneurship and Business, (SEBI) was launched, Dean of the new institution, Guyanese-born Professor Leyland Lucas has told the Stabroek Business that some of the challenges that repose in ensuring that the institution delivers on its mandate repose in the fact that “it is different. It is not an orthodox Business School”.
From the outset SEBI had committed to what it had determined from careful research was the need to respond to a counterproductive deficit in disciplines related to operating in both the public and private sectors in areas related to the effective delivery of goods and services. Not surprisingly, therefore, SEBI has found itself challenged by a student body that is anything but conventional, comprising as it does classes ranging from students with orthodox academic ambitions to those whose livelihoods depend on grasping the essentials necessary to run a business of their own.
“Some of our students have come to us with challenges that have nothing to do with academia. They are simply preoccupied with finding answers to those questions that have to do with running their own businesses,” Lucas told Stabroek Business. “Frankly, we recognize that some of our courses are still not fully developed to meet those needs. We hope that this will happen in the second term.”