Vice Chancellor meets with Berbice private sector on crucial issues

May 11, 2013 News

…receives support for raising fees

By Leon Suseran
Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana (UG), Prof. Jacob Opadeyi, visited Berbice on Thursday and met with the combined Chambers of Commerce (Berbice, Central and Upper Corentyne) at the University of Guyana Berbice Campus (UGBC).
The meeting was aimed at getting more private sector involvement in the operation of both campuses as well as discussing new courses to be considered. The discussions also centered on raising the tuition fees and accreditation at the University.
Those attending the meeting were Mark Roopnarine, President of the Berbice Chambers of Commerce; Guyandat Marray; Mohindra Persaud, Manager Nand Persaud & Company; Imran Saccoor, Manager, Republic Bank; Mohamed Raffik, Central Corentyne Chambers; Kris Raghunandan, Social Worker; Vishnu Doerga, and Upper

Vice Chancellor Prof. Opadeyi (L) and UGBC Director, Prof. Samad (R) at the press conference in Berbice.

Corentyne Chamber.
At a subsequent press conference several members of the chambers supported the UG tuition fees hike from its current $127,000. Prof. Opadeyi stated that the issue is not really about increased fees; rather it is really about the funding mechanism of the national university.
“Do you fund this university using tuition or corporate financing or budgetary allocation?”
Prof. Opadeyi added that a university cannot depend solely on budgetary allocations. This, he said, limits constant expansion of the tertiary institution. Private sector funding and endowment funding are possible sources of funding.
He called on the private sector to contribute more, financially, to students’ high academic achievements, which is another way of helping the university, so that there can be more competition amongst students.
“Money,” he stated, “is the motivation of our youths today and there is nothing wrong in it.”
Mr. Doerga expressed support but added that there is always an issue of quality and price. “If we continue to work with rates that have been used for many, many years—the cost of living and education keep going around all of us—it’s one of the reasons that the university might not be able to improve its offerings.”
He added that if the situation warrants an increase of fees, in order for graduates to access better education, “we would have to support that and cannot sit back and watch the situation continue to deteriorate, because we are trying to hold on to fees that are no longer relevant and might no longer provide the value that they had when they were implemented”. While noting that this move might be unpopular, “we have to be realistic about it”.
Mr. Raffik added that if the university wants high quality teachers, “you have to pay high quality salaries”. He opined that UG has very few persons with doctorate degrees and “very few professors”… and it reflects, directly, on the level of students we are putting out; because if you don’t have quality persons to teach them…”
From his view, it is important that a balance is struck in the fees that the students are paying. The university had stated some time ago that it costs almost $355,000 to educate one student per academic year.
“I don’t know how they’re going to run their programmes with that deficit—over $235,000 deficit per student per year…and if they have to employ quality people, they have to find the money from somewhere.” He said that “definitely” supports the increase of fees.
Accreditation
The Vice Chancellor is also calling for the immediate resuscitation of the National Accreditation Council (NAC). Accreditation is a process of validation for colleges, universities and other institutions of higher learning.
The standards for accreditation are set by a peer review board whose members include faculty from various accredited colleges and universities. The board aids in the evaluation of each potential new school accreditation or the renewals of previously accredited colleges/schools. UG was last locally accredited about four years ago.
While noting that only two programmes carry accreditation—the Law, and Medicine Programmes—there are two different types of accreditation: national and professional accreditation. A national accreditation body is tasked with assessing the non- professional programmes such as education, etc, while the professional accreditation body – which is functioning—accredits the law and medicine programmes. Several programmes offered by UG are also not accredited overseas.
Comparing University of the West Indies (UWI) to UG in Guyana, Prof. Opadeyi stated that Trinidad has a functioning accreditation body.
“Guyana has its own but …they are not active. If we have that accreditation body of Guyana, we will have submitted ourselves for accreditation.”
Accreditation gives the university “its state of health”; a “good university will pick up that report card and fix those problems identified”.
The Vice Chancellor is therefore urging that the government resuscitate the NAC…”if they are active tomorrow, I will be the first to knock on their door and ask them to come and tell us [UG] what is wrong with us.”
Accreditation, he stated, is a bench mark for judging a university. The curriculum, facilities to teach, software, books, etc are measuring sticks used to accredit a university. This process is done over three to four years, he added.