We can transform UG in under five years, but…

Jun 30, 2015 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
It is a relief that new interest is being taken about the unmitigated wreck that is University of Guyana.
The recent editorial in KN that zoomed in on UG was spot-on. The Honourable Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, has put his reputation on the line. KN’s front page proclaimed: “If UG is not transformed in five years, I’m a failure.” Admirable indeed, since it represents a refreshing new attitude from the former Minister, who is reported to have said that UG is not the Ministry’s business.
Of the several letters and comments written recently, the article that caught my eye was the one that advocated the closure of UG for three years, while we build a new institution.
As someone who has been intimately involved in reforming and transforming universities in several countries around the world, I would say that this is impractical. To begin with, this closure would disenfranchise thousands of enrolled students as well as the new intakes. What do they do in the meantime? Faculty and staff will also suffer unimaginably. Having been unemployed for almost three years and still without a job, I know that suffering very well, and no one in this nation should have to endure that horror.
But the essential question is this: How do we transform UG? It is sure that it cannot be done with the current thinking. Here are a few starting points:
1.  Close UG for ONE semester, during which we bring UG’s Acts and Statutes into the 21th Century. Our parliamentarians can pass an Act without delay to make this real.
2. Refashion the Administrative Structure at Turkeyen and UGBC within a week.
3. For the closed semester, students will be given appropriate assignments/papers/projects in each course. These will be incrementally submitted to respective lecturers by email per fortnight and feedbacks from lecturers to students are due within a week. Hold to these time lines. In this way, no time is wasted by anyone, and students will not be disenfranchised in any way. Ancillary staff will remain on the job.
4. In the semester of closure, design a Strategic Planning Engine for UG (Strategic Plans are no longer used in the educated world).
The Outcomes of the Strategic Planning Engine will include the following: A Strategic Plan; Updated Rules and Regulations; Financial Structure with predictive profitability; modernized curricular refashioning for every course in every academic department, every certificate programme, every diploma and degree programme across the university; infrastructure enhancement; library upgrade; IT upgrade; Mission Statement; hinterland and international outreach; twinning programmes; identification of National Priorities and design degree programmes to suit; Meals and Dormitory facilities, etc.
The Strategic Planning Engine will show the implications of each change in any area relative to all other areas, and to the institution as a whole, including costs.
5. Immediate but to-the-point, across-the-board consultative review of salaries, benefits, working conditions, and incentive schemes for measurable excellence. Immediate implementation. Full participation of all Unions will be necessary.
6. Design a Code of Practice for Teaching, Learning, Research Excellence and Administrative Excellence. This must be practical, measurable, implementable. Quality! Incentives will be built in for excellence.
7. Design Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for all categories of staff, all academic and non-academic units, all schools, and for the institution as a whole.
8. Design a comprehensive Student Advising Handbook and a companion booklet. These will facilitate the following: inform students of rules and regulations; inform students of important deadlines; inform students of course options and self-designed degree programmes; provide fast-track options, including extension courses and summer courses, so that a degree can be completed in three years or less; offer precise predictability for degree completion for each and every student; identify duties and obligations of all students and academic advisors; track Grade Point Average for each student; ensure fairness and academic integrity; identify areas of weakness for corrective action, etc.
This is more difficult than I make it appear, but there are a few (very few and none in the West Indies) of us who have done this for several countries with great success.
The Minister is right. We can transform UG in under five years, and make the place internationally recognized and free of government subvention in eight years. It can be done, but it would take creativity, international experience, great intelligence, and a love for this nation that is beyond measure.
Professor Daizal R. Samad

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