Frustrations with UG online programmes

Sep 21, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
Please permit some space in your newspaper to highlight some issues currently faced with the University of Guyana Online programme.
Everything happens online these days. A quick search of the internet will deliver thousands of results of Universities offering their programmes through an online platform. This has proven very useful for those universities as they can cater for more students without having to provide classroom space for them. However, it is not just the universities which have benefitted but the students as well; they no longer have to go through what has become known as the formal schooling setting – where students have to be present physically in a classroom with a teacher or lecturer. They can now be wherever they want as long as they have an internet connection. This probably is the way many will get their tertiary and other education in the future.
Our own university of Guyana decided several years ago to go down this path offering very robust content filled courses online. When I saw the opportunity, I decided that this was for me, as I work and travel frequently. I was excited about the prospects of finally getting a degree from UG as I was not able to do so in the past because of my work and other factors which prevented me from doing full time courses at the Turkeyen campus. I applied and was successful which saw me enrolling for the online programme. That is where my nightmare started; this semester should have been the beginning of my third year at the university, however due the many delays on the delivery of my courses I and others are still to write our final examinations for our second year. Hopefully, this will happen in the last week of November.
It must be noted that I have kept my commitment to the university. I pay my tuition in cash to the university expecting that services provided to be of an exceptional standard. However, it seems that the online programme does not carry equal weight like the “regular” programmes offered by UG and as such we are discriminated against. If it does carry equal weight, then this is not evident as the programme is treated with disregard and callousness.
The programme has been plagued from the beginning; I understand that any new programme will have teething problems, however eventually it gets resolved. There seems to be very slow progress in fixing the problems with this programme. There is no effective coordination; the red tape to get things done; the uncertainty about where next as there is a lack of information from the university to the students; the lack of tutors to take the courses; and the list goes on.
Only recently a meeting was organized with the students of the online programme, even this seems not to have been organized properly. Notices were sent out late to students and tutors who were supposed to have turned up for a session with students in the afternoon session failed to show up except for a few which can counted on one hand.
A check at the university will reveal a high number of students dropped out of the programme as a result of the many issues plaguing it. A few of us who believe that the programme can work have remained and are trying to work with the university to ensure that we complete our degrees. We continue to make sacrifices; however it seems like the university has no regard for us and demonstrates this in the way we are treated. Second class!
There are many other students who are quite frustrated with the programme and hope the University can really get its act together. In the past I attempted to have some of the issues addressed by writing an email to a council representative who forwarded it to the Vice-Chancellor who then sent in to the coordinator of the online programme at the time. I visited her office but was unable to meet her as she was engaged in some other activity. A promise was made that I will be contacted; this never happened.
It is my hope that through this medium, the plight of the online students of the University of Guyana will be highlighted and the administrators can look to having the many issues resolved as soon as possible.
Current UG online student

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