AFTER reading a letter in the Kaieteur News of April 13, 2011: “UG in a mess? Whose fault is it?” I must say that I agree with the writer. As a former student and close observer of the institution, I have written about the woes of UG before. I truly cannot fathom the negative experience of the thousands of students who now find themselves tied to that institution. The University of Guyana continues to serve in the capacity of an advanced high school. After the institution’s water crisis made headlines recently, the toilets were aired all across Guyana. Truly shameful! What I saw on the news turned my stomach. No student should be forced to endure such insanitary conditions.  The UG administration continues to play games with its students’ future. We are coming to the end of this, the second semester of the academic year, and friends and associates of mine who are current students of the institution have related to me that they are still waiting to receive final grades from last semester, but they cannot be sure of when the grades will be available.
Cedric Lord has genuine concerns about the University of Guyana. That place is crumbling slowly but surely, and it is the students who will pay the ultimate price for the UG administration’s failure to effectively serve its students. Last year, the University of Guyana graduated 1400 students from the Turkeyen campus. This figure was on the front page of all the local newspapers. Sadly, Guyana does not the capacity to absorb all these students into its workforce. There is simply not a great demand in the job market. Yet, UG continues to churn out more and more graduates year after year. In the Social Science faculty there are approximately 2,520 students, and that faculty as well as others are doing courses which are not in keeping with national needs.
Yes, every eligible citizen deserves higher education, and yes, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that this is provided, but access to UG is no guarantee of a solid education. The student loans provided by the government are non- revolving, this means that they are hardly ever repaid. The admissions requirements for UG prospective students are too low, and this lowers the standards of the institution. Raising the admissions requirements will indefinitely solve both problems. Nonetheless, UG remains a political battlefield where PNC nesters would rather sacrifice their students in the name of political power, than act in the students’ interest and effectively manage that institution.