Financial boost at UG could attract qualified lecturers

Financial boost at UG could attract qualified lecturers – Urling

Apr 18, 2013 News

The fact that Guyana is part of a global village must be taken into consideration even when the issue of tertiary education is considered. This is the conviction of President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Clinton Urling.
He was at the time commenting on the quality of lecturers at the University of Guyana. He noted that “from what I have heard the quality is poor with a few exceptions, and the exceptions are persons who basically want to give back to Guyana and they serve pro bono here…they receive some money but basically it is pro bono,” said Urling.

GCCI’s President, Clinton Urling

He speculated that there are a number of persons who graduate with a first degree and opt to lecture; a state of affairs he claims does not obtain at most universities.
“That simply doesn’t happen at some Universities and we are talking about the quality of the entire programme of the University,” said Urling as he spoke of the need for improvement of the quality of education at the local tertiary institution.
He said that at most universities it is required that lecturers have at least a Master’s Degree and not a First Degree.
Moreover, the quality of lecturers, Urling said, must be seen as a matter of concern and therefore must be addressed through increased funding; which he believes must be plugged into the university perhaps through increased tuition fees, to attract better qualified lecturers.
He conjectured that adequately qualified persons would not choose to return to the university to lecture. “I am an academic by heart, not by profession, but if I had to choose I wouldn’t go to the University of Guyana; I wouldn’t do it based on them paying me $100,000 a month, or whatever it is, when we live in a global village. That is something that we need also to take into perspective.”
According to Urling, highly qualified individuals would more than likely prefer to offer their services at institutions such as the University of the West Indies where they would be paid a salary that could afford them a better living standard.
Urling’s view about the improvement of the quality of education was in fact on par with that of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Professor Jacob Opadeyi, who had publicly disclosed that “if you want quality degrees you will pay for it; nobody gets quality for free! If students can’t pay for it somebody got to pay for it; either the private sector or scholarships, somebody got to pay for it.”
He was at the time seeking to justify plans in the pipelines to increase tuition costs at the tertiary institution even as he alluded to the need for qualified lecturers who would have attained Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate degrees.
“Somebody has to pay them for that. If you don’t want to pay them for that then you will get low quality teachers. How can you get a good lawyer to come and teach law in this university? You have to pay that person to stop all practices and come and teach here.
If you want a good medical doctor to teach here you have to pay that person to stop all private practices…and somebody got to pay for it,” he asserted.
He proposed a hike in tuition fees as the way forward even as efforts are also made to improve the facilities and services all of which he noted cost money.
According to Professor Opadeyi, money should not be raised through begging but rather through the services that are being sold.
“What are the services that we are selling at this university? We are selling education…we are selling a certificate. For the Vice Chancellor to sign that this person has a BSc it means that the Vice Chancellor has received the cheque for the work that was put in to get that degree,” said the Vice Chancellor as he reiterated the need for a hike in fees.