Backdoor entry requirements into UG should be abolished

Jun 18, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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There is a crisis at the University of Guyana. There is a crisis because the university is underfunded.
This crisis will get worse. This year an allocation necessary for the replenishment of the University of Guyana Student Loan Fund was not approved by the National Assembly. This will affect the resources available to the university to the extent that it may have to reduce the number of courses offered, chop its staff complement, or close its doors.
This column had long suggested that the University of Guyana needs a two-year sabbatical. It needs to close its doors for two years. During that period it needs to reflect on just what type of university it wants, and standards that it needs to embrace to achieve its own vision.
Those responsible for the University of Guyana need to decide whether they want a night school, a part- time university, a college or a first class institution. If it is the latter, then they have to address not just the issue of funding but also the issue of standards, beginning with entry requirements.
For too long, the University of Guyana has tampered with standards. In so doing it has created what some people refer to as “backdoor” entry requirements for those persons who do not have the most basic requirements, or five subjects at one sitting or six subjects at two sittings of either the GCE O’ Levels or CSEC examinations.
During the time of the PNC, there were many party card holders who were given jobs in the State sector. There was a time in this country when having a party card meant more than having a school-leaving certificate. There were some persons who used to “pick corn” on their typewriters. Yet they were given jobs in front of young girls who had gone to secretarial schools and were highly proficient in shorthand and typewriting. There were some guys who could not spell their names, but they were foisted into positions within the public sector. These persons owed their positions to having a party card or knowing someone who was high up in the PNC who could arrange a job for them.
They were loyalists. As loyalists, the PNC wanted them to move up the chain of command of their organizations and take over from those who had either left or retired. The problem was that these square pegs were not qualified. The individuals, however, wanted to improve themselves, and so they desired to attend university so that they could graduate with a degree and this would improve their prospects within the public sector.
The problem was that they did not have the five subjects at one sitting which was the basic entry requirement to enter the University of Guyana. The PNC government therefore came up with a plan to allow them to enter university if they had certain alternative qualifications which were approved by the university. One of these alternative qualifications was some certificate in industrial relations or something to that effect from Critchlow Labour College.
The acceptance of this alterative qualification was tantamount to creating a backdoor entry requirement for those who the PNC wished to become qualified so as to be promoted within the public sector. And let us be honest, a lot of non- PNC persons, including PPP leaders, have benefitted from that alternative entry requirement.
I do not know what you the readers feel but there is no way, I am convinced, that this one-year or two-year programme at Critchlow Labour College is equivalent to five subjects at one sitting at the GCE O’ Level or CSEC examinations. I do not think so. And I believe that this helped to water down the entrance standards at the University of Guyana.
My point is, what was preventing those same students from going to private classes over the same two-year period that they would have spent at Critchlow Labour College and obtaining five subjects at the GCE O’ Level or CSEC examinations?  Why instead of creating an alternative entry requirement, could the authorities not simply have urged those students to go and write these subjects privately so that they could gain entry into the University of Guyana?
I am seeing it happening again. Just a few weeks ago, there was a notice in the newspapers about some Physics course that is being offered for persons interested in entering the University of Guyana but who did not obtain Physics at the school-leaving examinations. It was said in the notice that successful completion of this course would be a substitute for not passing the Physics at the CSEC or GCE O’ levels.
This is a treacherous road that the university is going down and one that will affect its standards, and ultimately, the quality of its graduates. The University has to do better. It has to lift its standards.
I can appreciate the need to have full programmes, but once you begin compromising with your entry requirements and having entrance examinations and special courses being run to facilitate entry into the university, you will run into serious problems.
(To be continued)

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