A feasibility study spearheaded by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams, to ascertain whether the establishment of a local law school would be a viable option is currently underway. This revelation was made yesterday by Williams, following a high-level meeting in his chambers to discuss the way forward for Guyanese law students who have been negatively affected by recent developments at the Hugh Wooding Law School.
Present at the meeting which facilitated discussions related to issues affecting students were Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Jacob Opadeyi; Head of the Department of Law, Sheldon McDonald; President of the Bar Association, Christopher Ram; past president of the Bar Association, Ronald Burge-Smith; a member of the Council of Legal Education; and Vincent Alexander, Technical Advisor to the senior Minister of Education and former registrar of UG.
Dominating the meeting were issues which are currently affecting the students, currently pursuing their Legal Education Certificate (LEC) at the Hugh Wooding School.
The most important of these is a sudden 32.29 per cent hike in tuition fees which will cost the law students an additional G$800,000 annually, and a new requirement which stipulates that the fees must now be paid in full as opposed to the former arrangement of a 50 per cent in the first semester and the remainder in the final semester.
According to the AG, the new imposition of the tuition hike has unknown origins as it unclear up to this point, who or which body made the decision. As a result, he related that, “We are trying to get the minutes from the law school and we believe something like that ought to have at least a year’s notice before being implemented.”
Additionally, Williams explained that efforts are being made to ensure that the increase does not take effect immediately, so as to provide students with adequate notice of their targets, to enter the Hugh Wooding Law School. This situation, he said, has been an “onerous” one.
The Attorney General, who has been lobbying since his assumption to office for the fair treatment of Guyanese law students, explained that the 25 law students from UG who would have qualified for entry into the school later this year, and those already in Trinidad will be affected by these requirements which surfaced recently. “
As such, one of the issues raised at the meeting held in his Chambers yesterday by the students was the awarding of scholarships for final year students by the Government of Guyana.
But according to Williams, there is an issue with funding at the moment. “We’re having a rough time with funds because of the inherited problems with rice and sugar and a set of debts which seems to be surfacing every day” he reasoned.
The question of the collaboration agreement between UG, the Council for Legal Education (CLE) and UWI was also on the agenda at yesterday’s meeting.
The automatic admission was an arrangement that existed under a collaborative agreement between the University of the West Indies, the Council of Legal Education and UG. The agreement has expired, and has not been renewed for the year 2014.
As it relates to other issues which contribute to the law students’ discomfort at the Trinidad-based education institution, the AG related that it is recognized that a permanent solution is needed to solve these reoccurring issues.
To this end, he noted that, “We are looking at the question of the viability of setting up a local law school through public private partnerships. We’ve decided that we will establish a committee to look into that. We hope to deal with these issues quickly because they are pressing matters.”
Earlier this month, too, regional integration facilitator, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) had called on the Hugh Wooding Law School to make provision to accommodate the top 25 Guyanese law students for 2015.