IT is utterly not my pleasure to have to do this, but unfortunately, the truth must be told. I am responding to Reggie Chee-a-Tow’s letter in the Guyana Chronicle of December 16, 2010. Thankfully, Reggie was able to receive a good education, but because of anti-government nesters that now dominate UG’s administration, UG can boast of no quality assurance. The University of Guyana that was established by Dr. Jagan has dangerously deteriorated. It is certainly not the University of Guyana that we have today. The government commits significant amounts to UG yearly, but has little say in how the institution functions. Notwithstanding the fact that UG has selected an individual to serve as the quality assurance coordinator, there are still no quality assurance mechanisms in place at the university.  It is the administration’s responsibility to put these things in place, so that students will receive the level of education that they are paying for. Nevertheless, with the exception of the Law and Medicine courses, the University of Guyana has zero accreditation, and the degrees offered are not recognised.
This university’s senior administrators sacrifice its students’ interest and welfare to further their own political ambition. That is right! For the sake of political power, innocent students were kicked to the curve and left helplessly to haul themselves off.  This university refuses to clean up its own act, both academically and monetarily. As I have said before, I was spectacularly knocked for six when I discovered that the administration is arrogantly floating in a G$373 million deficit that it cannot resolve, and top ranking UG officials circle the globe, travelling to here, there, and everywhere at the university’s and students’ expense. The quality of lecturers at UG has also deteriorated. I am sure that I can count with one hand; the number of accomplished professors that lecture at UG. Instead, cowboy lecturers roam the campus and occasionally grace students with their presence in classrooms. Anyway, those lecturers have better things to do I guess, like write features for newspapers (extra income). Others, when they are not teaching archaic, irrelevant material, prefer to educate students through “sex lectures”.
Editor, I too was beyond disappointment by these revelations, to put it mildly. But this reaches beyond me; it affects an entire generation, an entire population! But what curdles my blood, is that these students have become so institutionaliaed that they are now docile and compliant to these atrocities. These students, whose futures are being encroached upon by UG’s failure to meet their academic needs, have just accepted this calmly, because the cultures that we live and are in Guyana, have made us passive and accepting of whatever befalls us. These students are not being taught to think outside the box, or that they can demand better, and this in itself is another failure on UG and a failure for Guyana. I regrettably inform you Reggie Chee-a-Tow that this ‘glorified high school’ that we have in this country called the University of Guyana, would certainly make President Jagan’s ashes roll in his grave. I do not have an axe to grind. The purpose of my writings is solely to expose the inefficiencies of this university, because these problems will never be addressed if people are blinded to think that they do not exist. UG can do better, so let us all resolve to make it better.