Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad has been ap­point­ed chair­man of the Board of Gov­er­nors of the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of High­er Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (NI­HERST).

The ap­point­ments were an­nounced af­ter Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Prakash Per­sad dis­trib­uted in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment to the new board.

Dr Sharmi­la Har­ry was ap­point­ed deputy chair­man.

The oth­er gov­er­nors are An­dre Thomp­son, Aaron A.T. Patrick, Jerome Ram­lakhan, Usha Ram­per­sad-Gokool and Naki­ta Pat­ter­son.

Dr Fazal Ali will serve on the board as pres­i­dent ex-of­fi­cio.

In a state­ment is­sued to­day, NI­HERST said the new­ly ap­point­ed board had been tasked with guid­ing the in­sti­tute’s strate­gic di­rec­tion as part of ef­forts to strength­en gov­er­nance and ad­vance sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, in­no­va­tion and re­search in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The in­sti­tute said it looked for­ward to work­ing with the new board “to ush­er in a trans­for­ma­tive era for na­tion­al sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, in­no­va­tion, and re­search in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”