UG administration needs to be more proactive
– television panel agrees
UNIVERSITY of Guyana (UG) Council Member and Attorney-at-Law, Bibi Shaddick has reiterated that no one had deliberately set out to terminate Lecturer, Frederick Kissoon’s services at the institution as is being conveyed by certain sections of society and the media. She was at the time speaking on a special programme on the National Communications Network (NCN) along with UG Pro-Chancellor, Dr. Prem Misir and Professor Calvin Eversley, who specialises in jurisprudence and equity in the Department of Law at UG.
Shaddick explained that Kissoon taught at the university until he reached the age of 60 at the end of December 2010 and, as is normal, he continued to render his service until the end of the academic year.
However, what took place after was contrary to the laws as Kissoon, among others, were given a post-retirement contract for a year that was accepted by the Appointments Committee but those contracts were not legal and were eventually deemed null.
“After the age of retirement, there are certain considerations that are taken before persons are re-employed and January 18 (when Kissoon’s dismissal was announced) was the end of a protracted period since August,” the Government Information Agency (GINA) quoted her as saying on the television programme.
Whenever people are going to retire, the positions that they hold are advertised and other people are invited to apply. In the case of the department in which Kissoon is attached there were eight applicants, four of whom were employed as lecturers at U.G.
Shaddick emphasised that according to the principles that are laid down, when re-employing people on a post-retirement contract, the issue of whether or not other people are available to teach the classes has to be taken into consideration and, in this case, four people were employed.
Additionally, focus also has to be placed on whether or not the retiree has some special skill or performs a specific function that could be fulfilled by anyone else; in Kissoon’s case this was not clearly established.
A lecturer’s academic/research profile is another important aspect that is taken into consideration; however, in the documents that were presented to the Council, no evidence of independent research was attributed to Kissoon; the last paper that has his name on it was done five years ago in 2007.
“If somebody is going to stay at the university for over 20 years and reach the age of 60 and is still at the level of Lecturer 1 or 11, then something has to be lacking,” Shaddick declared.
Two Appointment Committee meetings were held in October and November last year, specifically to deal with post-retirement contracts and all that were awarded outside of the statutes, all of which were deemed null, were thoroughly discussed.
Traditionally, contracts are offered to professors, readers and senior lecturers since they have already established themselves as persons from whose expertise the university can benefit. The contracts of people in this category which includes Dr. Henry Jeffrey, were eventually accepted and approved.
Four contracts out of the list that was examined by the Committee were referred to the Council for decision, three of which were signed with Dr. Patrick Williams who is employed fulltime by UG as well as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) since 1998; Lawrence Bancroft, a 60-year-old Lecturer 1 who barely satisfies the research requirement, and Kissoon.
Pro-Chancellor Misir pointed out that this matter could have been resolved since September or October last year.
While acknowledging Kissoon’s contributions to the university, he explained that services on an illegal contract (which Kissoon has had) cannot be terminated. Moreover, he is a pensioner and they are not subject to automatic re-employment, GINA reported.
“The university does have problems that are genuine…matters such as a leaking roof, flooded classroom and weak furniture; you don’t need Government to come and fix those things or for the University Council to come and check those things on a day to day basis…I think if you have an active, innovative administration, many of those problems that are now being raised would have been resolved,” the Pro-Chancellor said.
He said the university’s administration has the funds to address these matters. However, much more resources are needed for bigger projects; this will be made available when certain criteria are met including the finalisation of the strategic plan.
He added too, that the Guyanese public needs to understand that there are short-term, intermediate and long-terms problems, all of which require different levels of funding.
The short-term, he said, can be resolved immediately through the innovative capacity of the Vice-Chancellor.
Professor Eversley said the Council has come in for a lot of flak simply for correcting a problem by an egregious error, whereby someone offered and signed for someone who did not have the authority to do so.
He added that there was no other option that the Council could have taken.
He clarified that contrary to what has been published in certain sections of the media, classes are still ongoing at UG. He said that while people have the right to protest, it should be done within the confines of the law. Moreover, the rights of people who do not wish to participate in the protest must also be respected.
“My appeal to the protestors, protest all you like, that is your right but please allow other people to exercise (their) constitutional right…the exercise of constitutional rights are based on the mutuality of respect…let us sit down with maturity and civility and solve our problems,” he urged.