Tuition fees for Guyanese attending the University of the West Indies (UWI) are now comparable to fees paid by those from countries that contribute to it and relations between UG and UWI have progressed over the past two years with both institutions set to benefit, UWI Vice-Chancellor Nigel Harris says.
Speaking about the progress of relations between the University of Guyana (UG) and UWI since he took over the vice-chancellorship of UWI two years ago, Harris told the Stabroek News on Tuesday evening in Georgetown that out of the substantive meeting which took place two years ago between the universities, the two now offer a joint masters degree programme in construction engineering and project management.
This programme is done jointly with the School of Engineering at the St Augustine Campus in Trinidad and Tobago.
Joint masters
He said that Guyanese academic, Clement Sankat, who was the former Dean of the School of Engineering at St Augustine, “was the mover and shaker behind the joint masters degree programme”. Sankat, who is now UWI’s Pro Vice-Chancellor for graduate programmes, was also assisted by others “but he made things happen,” Harris said in giving him credit.
Speaking about the issue of fees for Guyanese students who seek tuition at UWI mainly because UG does not offer some of the courses that UWI does, Harris said that in the past Guyanese students had to pay international university tuition rates because Guyana does not contribute financially to the institution.
He said, “We are trying to make UWI as accessible to Guyanese and most faculties are open to Guyanese. We have managed to reduce them (the fees). I think it is equivalent to any UWI campus in the region. We treat it as if you were from one of the 15 contributing countries. I wish Guyana was a contributing country.”
PhD scholarships
Noting that the relationship between the two universities “has evolved very nicely indeed” since the initial two-day meeting about how the universities could work better with each other, he said that four members of the academic staff of UG have been provided scholarships to attend UWI in various areas to complete their PhD (doctorate).
This was made possible by the Pilgrim Scholarship Foundation in New York which provided some funding for living and other expenses over the two to three years they would be accommodated at the UWI campuses.
The offer of the scholarships was one commitment the two agreed on in terms of building the credentials of the staff at UG. Two of the UG lecturers are based at the St Augustine campus while the other two are at Mona in Jamaica and at Cave Hill in Barbados. Already equipped with their masters’ degree they have begun their studies at the start of the current semester.
Over the past year, UWI worked with the UG librarians who went to St Augustine where UWI’s chief librarian is based.
“There have been good works between the two libraries,” he declared.
He said, too, UWI played a role in putting together the University of Guyana Strategic Plan more than a year ago as well as the CUPIDE-sponsored online teaching project. The CUPIDE (Universities Project for Integrated Distance Education) project at UG, which is funded by the Japanese funds-in-trust for capacity building, has been ongoing for the past two years.
As part of the new cooperation pact between the two universities, UWI has also accepted a number of UG graduates from the University of Guyana medical school to do residency at Cave Hill.
Apart from the joint masters degree programme in construction engineering and project management, Harris said that UG could offer UWI assistance in areas like agriculture, forestry, bio-diversity, bio-fuel because Guyana represents the best possibility of developing ethanol based on cane sugar in the region.
Agro bio-technology
At present UWI is building an agro bio-technology programme and, he said, he would like that programme to span the three campuses. He added that he would like the programme to be introduced at UG because “the truth is the agricultural possibilities are considerably higher in Guyana than anywhere else in the Caribbean.”
UG and UWI, he said, have been discussing a number of programmes and projects both publicly and privately depending on the nature and stage of talks.
“The administration and the academic staff are very enthusiastic about this relationship which we are building. I really would like that these links to become stronger because I think both of us can benefit,” he said adding that the way he was going about building the relationship was one in which both are working collaboratively and not one in which one was better than the other.
Harris said that during his tenure as Vice-Chancellor he would like to rebuild as best as possible that UG/UWI link.
“There have been many false starts before. Some of the false starts were based on the perception that UWI was coming in to dominate. It was not a relationship as equal partners,” he said.
Having made his point, he said that, “you will have to ensure that people are working at it. You can start projects but the whole effort could fall unless you keep at it over and over and continue to build on it.”
Admitting that UG was working with many challenges, which he did not elaborate on, he said the response by UG on linkages between UWI and UG has been very positive with the administrative and academic staff led by Vice Chancellor Professor James Rose.
