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Identifying the cause of UG’s disaster

Sep 01, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
One of the persons I admired in politics during the period 2005 -2011 was Mr. Raphael Trotman. During the period 2004 to the birth of the Alliance for Change, I was accused by many persons of using my column to push for the formation of a party by Mr. Trotman and Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan. In 2011, I thought the PPP’s rule was so horrible that it surpassed the excesses of President Burnham beyond belief that I felt I should contribute to the election campaign
I did give my time and resources to the AFC during the 2011 campaign. I was on the trail in Region Ten with Mr. Trotman himself. Since then Mr. Trotman’s politics in my opinion has declined and badly so. And I am compelled to reply to him over remarks he made last Tuesday about UG that was extremely poor judgement. I feel it borders on dishonesty and was a personal insult to me
Of UG this is what he said; “There is a lack of vision of where we are and where we need to be, the problem is just not the politicians, it is our problem.” How Mr. Trotman can utter such a statement is unbelievable. Countless people in and out of Guyana have a relevant vision for UG and some of our top scholars have outlined this vision. The problem is the politicians.
Can Mr. Trotman say which university in the world has on its governing council six parliamentarians from the ruling party and among those six is the presidential advisor on governance and another two though not parliamentarians hold membership in the ruling party? And the Pro-Chancellor is the Chief of Communication in the Office of the President.
How is UG our problem when the students and staff have absolutely no input in policy-making? I end with my another question to Mr. Trotman. At which university a lecturer’s contract could be terminated by the governing council without prior notice and without any complaint from any section of the university and without even a hearing? That happened to my contract on Jan 18, 2012
In an email string where all the major AFC players are on, I did say to Mr. Trotman that he was the only AFC leader that said not a word on how my contract was terminated. Many AFC leaders turned up at the daily demonstrations at UG.
When I was in the television studio waiting to be interviewed, he was leaving and he did say in the presence of Mr. Christopher Ram that he knew of a situation at UWI in Barbados where the student population rose up in anger over the dismissal of a lecturer. In that same e-mail exchange, he wrote that he couldn’t see the need for a committee to investigate my situation because what happened to me was so wrong and everybody knows that. I did ask in that very mail for him to go public but he never did
Finally, I would like to put in print my eternal gratitude to the Stabroek News for a Sunday editorial that looked at the egregious way the Council operated in terminating my contract. I really did appreciate that commentary and I thank the Stabroek News once again for its open, independent position on my dismissal. I would also like here and now to thank the Kaieteur News and Stabroek News for their coverage of the daily demonstrations that were directed at the Council over its crass, illegal behaviour.
If any legacy I have left at UG in the 26 years I served that institution is that I don’t believe now, in the immediate and distant future, we will see the Council of the University terminating a lecturer’s contract without any form of complaint from any section of the University and without a hearing to the staff member and that is all because of the courage of those students and lecturers who rejected the depraved way the UG Council acted
Frederick Kissoon

 

 

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