OVER the past few months, I have listened to many stories of students of the University of Guyana. These stories are first-hand accounts of the struggles, plight, and challenges they endure on an almost daily basis while studying at the University.
One student said since his father has become temporarily unemployed, it has been rough for his family. He tells of scraping up monies to pay his tuition fees, and the odd-jobs he has had to do to get monies to cover the many other fees that UG demands students pay such as hefty library, badges, and facilities fees.
He is dying under the financial pressure that is placed on him by UG. That is not all. He already is thinking about how he is going to pay back the government for the loan he took when he was pursuing a diploma. It is reaching the point that his parents are nagging that he will have to get a job full-time and quit ‘the UG thing’, because “it’s not working out”. He is stressed out, and depression is gripping him.
So, when he heard President Irfaan Ali’s New Year Message about making UG free, and the promise of dealing with the student loan dilemma this year, he was ecstatic, satisfied, and overjoyed, to say the least.
All students, except a few critics and skeptics, were elated to hear Ali’s announcement yet again. After all, Outgoing President of Student Society Shaqwaun Gill, in an interview, said the students are indeed happy, but they are waiting for this move to become a reality.
Gill, who appeared to be hiding or holding back his apparent excitement, said “they will believe it when they see it.”
This move means the government was not ‘mamaguying’ them and seeking to fool the young people into voting for them during the last election, when it promised that they would have free tertiary education at UG. It is well known that some ‘politicians cannot be trusted and lie’, but this government is proving that to be an outright fallacy.
Firstly, the government is undertaking a huge, difficult, and tricky task of making education free at UG. It is no easy task, considering the amount of debt that UG has incurred due to mismanagement.
While agreeing with the critics that education at all levels is supposed to be free, as enshrined in the Guyana Constitution, the government must ensure that it carefully considers the steps to clear the way for students to truly benefit from this right.
It must ensure that the UG gets the funds it needs, or thinks it needs, to restructure its finances.
It also must use its resources carefully to substitute the shortfall in revenue that will arise from its bold decision to make tertiary education free again.
In other words, whatever steps the government takes to accomplish this policy of making tertiary education free again, the university must be able to stand on its own two feet, and be allowed to manage its resources as it sees fit.
Secondly, the government and education stakeholders must impress upon UG’s Administration that even though they will ‘purse’ this task, they expect better financial management.
This is key because just now when access to tertiary education at UG is made free, the public will hear that UG suddenly is still cash-strapped or cannot pay its other bills, even with the money for the students’ tuition.
There must be tough discussions with UG about the need for accountability and transparency, once it is receiving more funds from the public purse.
If it will receive a bigger sum to maintain itself, offsetting students’ loans and fees, then UG must realise that there needs to be value for money, and must work double times harder at making sure it addresses its high dropout rate, high turn-over rate of lecturers, and such-like issues.
Thirdly, while the government is keeping its promise and working in the interest of many Guyanese families and young people, like the one aforementioned, UG must not get complacent and allow its quality to drop or shrink.
It must maintain the same entry requirements, and professionalism, save and except the mandatory tuition fee.
In other words, this burden that is being lifted off the backs of young and poor Guyanese must result in higher levels of performance, and better levels of quality.
Finally, young people would get the opportunity, when it becomes fully available, to focus on their studies more.
If they study and focus more, then UG will be aided to become one of the best knowledge centres in the Caribbean and the world. The government knows this, and is listening to the masses with this move towards freeing up UG from the burden of students’ tuitions and loans.
Already, the government has implemented its GOAL programme, which is achieving remarkable success across geopolitics, sex, gender and age. This, making UG free, now will be icing on the cake.