Christmas in August

Aug 22, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

It is raining goodies. It is Christmas in August.
Elections are in the air. You know that for sure when governments begin to offer all manner of things which they were not offering in the previous four years.
The government has been like Santa Claus recently. It is promising free education once again at the University of Guyana. It has not said whether this will come with National Service or some form of payback.
The government has signaled salary increases this year and next year. It has not said whether it will raise the miserly $8,000 uniform allowance that it pays to the nation’s teachers.
The sod has been turned for the construction of a new $70M mortuary – quite a lot of money to be spending on the dead, when a smaller sum could have been used to fix the dysfunctional mortuary at the New Amsterdam Hospital.
The latest promise which has been made is for limited scholarships for law graduates of the University of Guyana to pursue studies leading to the Legal Education Certificate. The government has not said how “limited” is “limited”.
An advertisement has been placed in the newspapers inviting applications for the scholarships. But if the number of scholarships is limited, why advertise? Why not simply ask the University of Guyana to identity the five or ten top students using the qualifying criteria which the government has outlined in terms of grade point averages?
In this way, the process will be made more transparent. And there can be no allegations of favouritism or discrimination in the award of scholarships.
All that has to happen is for the University of Guyana to shortlist the students who meet the qualifying criteria, and then to rank these in terms of their performance. In this way, the government does not have to interview persons, and the process would be extremely objective and free from bias. The same can be done for those first year students at High Wooding and other law schools offering the Legal Education Certificate. The whole process can be made objective
In this way, the government would be keeping its promise of scholarships, while ensuring a fair and transparent system in its award. It is left to be seen whether the government is prepared to go this route in its offer of limited scholarships.
A more difficult commitment to honour in the future would be the establishment of a law school, oil revenues or no oil revenues. The Council of Legal Education has pointed out that it is the only body authorised to establish law schools in the region. There is no indication that the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community have any intention of changing this arrangement, one which can ruin the plans for a private law school in Guyana.
There are other factors to consider. It can hardly be practicable for any private law school to be viable if it only offers a path to the LEC. Without offering a degree, the return on the investment in infrastructure, staff and materials, will not be recoupable. Also, it is likely that a private law school offering a degree in law would hurt the University of Guyana’s law programme. This would pose a dilemma for the government.
But who cares about all those “technicalities” during this season of giveaways and promises. The law students are going to be tumbling over each other, contesting for the limited scholarships which will be offered, even though when the oil revenues begin to pour in, the government would more than be able to afford to pay for all the law students to go to Hugh Wooding.
And why are only law students being offered scholarships now? What about teachers, doctors, engineers and environmentalists? Does Guyana not need these far more than lawyers? But who cares about priorities in this season when governments come bearing goodies?

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