-calls on institution to review strategic plan
Education Minister Shaik Baksh yesterday clarified issues that were raised in certain sections of the media to the effect that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Professor Lawrence Carrington, was dissatisfied with the funds allocated by government to the campus. Minister Baksh reinforced government’s commitment, not only to UG, but to tertiary education as a whole.
He explained that the university’s proposed strategic plan 2009-2012, was submitted a year ago (March 2010) and has been subjected to a lot of discussion both at the ministry and Cabinet levels.
Subsequent to its review, Cabinet cited 19 concerns, which were raised with the university’s administration.
Three of these included recommendations whereby UG should consider means by which the preponderance of social science registration can lead to increases in science and technology (a rebalancing of the programmes at UG), the campus should consider a radical shift towards distance mode and Information Technology(IT) delivery as a primary rather than a supporting mode of delivery of tertiary education, and UG should begin to plan for the long-term future of the campus and the nation which should be significantly different from what obtains at present.
Minister Baksh said that after Cabinet did not accept the plan in its entirety, the university was given the opportunity to conduct a revision of the plan with a view to incorporating the concerns that were expressed. To date however, the ministry has not received the amended plan.
He further explained that government gave the green light for the university to proceed with the implementation of certain aspects of the plan which did not require the outlay of financial resources, such as increasing managerial and operational efficiencies.
With regard to the deficits which, according to the Vice-Chancellor, have been incurred by UG, the minister said that government made clear that it was willing to put more financing into the institution; however, this was contingent on an acceptable strategic plan.    
Government has been increasing its contribution to UG. In 2010, the institution received $1.1B, and this year it was given $1.218B, an eight percent increase over the preceding year. Additionally, the campus’s subvention has seen a marked increase from $686M in 2010 to $707M this year.
As it relates to operational deficit, as was raised by the Vice-Chancellor, the minister said that there was a substantial increase in emoluments for academic staff from $775M in 2009 to $845M in 2010.
“We were expecting some prudence on the part of the university in terms of its overall programming, as there are some programmes that are being run with small numbers of students, which is not economical,” he said.
He added that the university has been requesting government to increase tuition fees and government is prepared to explore this, but would not endeavour to do so unless it is satisfied that the overall review of programmes will bring about greater efficiency in the campus’s operations.
Minister Baksh said that when Professor Carrington was recruited to head the university, government made clear the terms of reference. These stated that he would identify internal constraints to the implementation of the strategic plan (capacity, managerial and systemic weaknesses), examine proposals to be put up by the campus to achieve efficiency gains in its overall operations, and implement strong measures to improve quality assurance.
Thus far, the university has commenced looking at quality assurance issues. This was led by teams from the University of the West Indies (UWI) and a coordinator for quality assurance was appointed. However, Minister Baksh noted that much more needs to be done. 
“We noted with concern the prolonged registration processes at UG. The late uplift and marking of scripts make a tremendous impact on the registration. Many lecturers do not mark scripts on time; this rolls over into the new semester and creates problems,” he lamented.
He recommended that the external examiner system, which has worked well for UWI, be implemented.
Concerns were raised with regard to the quality of the graduates, as the private sector claims that many of the proposals that were recommended subsequent to a consultation with the university were not acted upon.
Minister Baksh maintained that while government, as the principal stakeholder, will continue to support the university, certain necessary steps will have to be taken on its part.
A US$10M fund from the World Bank will be made available to UG shortly to specifically focus on improving the curriculum and teaching, infrastructural rehabilitation (modernising all laboratories and enhancing sanitation, and electricity and water supply), and strengthening the maintenance strategy and plan of the institution.
Improvement of the Bio-diversity Center and the School of Earth Sciences will also be included under this project.  
Additionally, a $60M project, which will be funded by the Caribbean Development Bank, is expected to come on stream through technical assistance.
This project will look at a review of the process improvement background and organisational efficiency and effectiveness, review of financial processes and regulations, and recommendation of procedures, systems and structure to handle critical areas which impact on the organisational effectiveness of the university.
“We have a vested interest to ensure that the university performs at its optimum efficiency, so that the graduates who are coming out of the university are the best,” the Education Minister stated. (GINA)