Latest update April 7th, 2025 6:08 AM
UGSSA awards failing grade to Vice Chancellor
A failing grade has been awarded to recently appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Professor Jacob Opadeyi, by the University of Guyana Senior Staff Association (UGSSA), for his inability to function in a crisis situation.
According to President of the Association, Dr. Pat Francis, although the Vice Chancellor is well qualified and has been bestowed with the reputation of raising funds at institutions he had previously been associated with, the situation at the local university is very different.
UGSSA President, Dr. Pat Francis
“I think that he has functioned in well run situations in the past but this situation at UG is totally different. It is crisis upon crisis; our politics is different and the whole structure of the university and its relationship to all of our stakeholders is very different to what I believe he has grown accustomed to. Therefore at this point the Union is giving him an ‘F’.”
Dr. Francis, who along with other union executives was at the time sharing concerns about the state of the university at an emergency press conference at the University’s Turkeyen Campus Friday last, is optimistic that “he could recover.”
Alluding to the ever growing financial crisis of the tertiary institution, the UGSSA President made reference to a revolving student loan fund which was established by Government several years ago.
Although designed to accrue interest to aid the functioning of the university, she noted that this has not been the case since a lot of students have not been repaying their loans.
However, the financial challenge should not be one placed on the shoulders of the university as according to Dr. Francis, “this (students’ loan) Unit only sits at the University but is not part of the University’s administration responsibility…”
She explained that “somehow or the other in the accounting done in the budget, it is placed in there as though it is, but it really is not…so the university finds itself where it is underfunded for many years.”
This plight remains, according to her, despite the fact that the Students’ Loan system was put in place to alleviate the very problem that exists.
“We have been going into debt little by little; even our pension, the Actuary had determined several years ago that significant money should have gone into taking us out of a hole but we headed to some kind of bad situation…They have never honoured that, so over the years the debt has grown until we are in this terrible state,” Dr. Francis lamented.
It was this development, according to her, that had prompted the government itself to start questioning the efficiency of the university’s operation. She expressed her belief that “at this point regardless of what the auditors find the debt that has been built up over the years has to be written off.”
This is necessary, Dr. Francis noted, if Government “really wants to give this Vice Chancellor a chance. They will have to write off that debt and then they will have to put money into this university at various levels.”
According to the UGSSA President it was her belief that Government would have already seen the importance of plugging money into a pool that would allow the university to invest into activities which would have by now yielded income.
“None of this has happened so we are going forward creating more and more debt…”
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