The University of Guyana (UG) yesterday came under intense scrutiny over its inability to match the job market needs, its administration and the quality of its graduates and in its defence one of its officials called for greater belief in the institution.
The views were expressed during the public consultation which was facilitated by the government and held at the Guyana International Confer-ence Centre at Liliendaal.
An advertisement from the government which informed about the event appeared in the Guyana Chronicle and Kaieteur News. The advertisement was not submitted to the Stabroek News for publication.
The consultation drew around 30 responses from just about 100 participants attending the morning session which started just after 9. Around 90 persons remained for the second session.
Stakeholders were expected to examine the difficulties facing the university and propose strategies to help it overcome them, thus fostering efficiency, effectiveness, excellence and accountability.
Private sector representative Ramesh Dookhoo in his intervention said the private sector did not take the role of the university lightly and realized its stake in it but argued that there needed to be more coming from the institution. He added that his comments came against the background that the private sector was generally optimistic about the country’s economy but if the country was to move forward, “we need to know how the university will provide for this economic growth we are hoping for.”
In this regard he brought into question the quality of individuals being produced by the university
Analytical skills
He made it clear that the private sector possesses excellent executives across all areas who are products of the university “but what we are saying is that we had to put too much after they left UG and this investment has been a burden on us.”
“We want to see critical thinkers, problem solvers, graduates with high analytical skills and with strong focus on reality rather than theory,” he said.
He said it was important for graduates to be of sound knowledge and always in the learning mode.
His contention too was that some graduates are poorly prepared for the world of work and urged that the university reinstitute compulsory programmes for students to spend time at industries before they graduate.
Dookhoo said the university’s curriculum needs to be so tailored to meet the needs of the country and its economic aspirations and its industry-specific requirements.
He alluded to the fact that many industries are on the brink of expansion and so the university should produce the personnel to match this. To this end he pointed to the quality of lecturers and on-campus facilities, saying that they must be improved to enhance students’ university experience.
He commented too on the tedious registration system which students are forced to deal with prior to the start of each academic year.
On the matter of UG’s administration, Dookhoo pointed out that as with any company or organisation if there is no success the administration is held responsible and so it was ultimately the institution’s administration which was somewhat responsible for the state it is in.
“It is the administrators who ought to be more cautious about how they administer, and are responsible for what the university takes in and what it puts out. If there is poor administration then what he produces would be poor,” he declared.
He said that from all observations it was obvious that there needs to be improvement in the quality of administration and the need for professional managers to manage the university’s funds.
He also suggested that the university be more self-sufficient and insisted that it implement a wide range of programmes to address the country’s skill deficiencies.
Single
economic space
Engineer Joseph Holder, who said he represented the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers (GAPE), spoke to the issue of regulating the profession in the context of the single Caricom economic space, but noted that in the long run for engineers to be able to offer services in the region the university would have to meet certain accreditation requirements.
According to him since 1973 GAPE has been trying to push for the regulation of the profession and noted that in the absence of this anyone with a bachelor’s degree from the university could claim to be an engineer. However he said the association believed that a practising engineer should also have at least four years of post-graduate education and training.
He noted that though the single economic space allowed for the free trade in services, Guyana will have to regularize the profession and pass the required legislation to this effect before Guyanese engineers are allowed to work in other parts of the region.
He said the association has also observed that lab facilities at the faculty of technology require upgrading and sustaining. Holder said he was concerned that the faculty only had a few full-time staff but attributed this to the unsatisfactory remuneration which he said he was forced to deal with during his tenure as a lecturer at the university. With specific reference to the much talked about University strategic plan, Holder said he was mostly concerned about what it would do with regard to regularizing the engineering profession.
Alvin Doris, a graduate of the University who said he intended to be part of the discussion because of his own experiences on campus, highlighted the need for collaboration between the administration and the student populace.
“Students are eager to participate in the change process and advancement process, but the administration should make the gesture to get them involved, since it cannot operate in isolation in the context of the development of the university and the enhancement of the student experience,” he said.
Archive
He alluded too to incidents in the past which highlighted that lack of security on campus and its environs. In his view the university did not have clear borders adding that this was enough to raise security concerns.
Meanwhile he likened the current university library to that of an archive. “We don’t have a library, we have an archive and a limited collection of outdated materials,” he said.
Doris referred to Dookhoo’s comments that some UG students were not analytical, and posited that this may be directly linked to the limited core of information resources available on campus.
He recommended a more ‘hands-on’ approach to the simple things affecting the university, “and we can have a better UG.”
Calls for the university to be more self-sustaining were pushed further by Berbice Campus representative, Ravi Drepaul who also added that in the short- run government needed to make substantial investments in the university.
He was of the view that the university needed a serious financial boost and said that tuition fees were not sufficient and recommended the elimination of fees and the revision of entry requirements.
The argument for the university to be given the licence to operate its own television station was also raised. Some members of the university’s academic staff also called for greater involvement in matters of the university, and said that they were not consulted prior to the crafting of the university’s strategic plan.
Some of the on-campus conditions were also described as atrocious with strong calls for government to pump more funds into the institution.
The University administration had its say and Deputy Registrar Vincent Alexander asked “Do we get the cream of UG’s crop or do we get the remainder after the cream has left”?
He recommended such an issue be dealt with by some kind of research.
According to him a proposal was tabled more than six months ago for the organisation to deal with a better system of registration but up to now they are s
till awaiting a response.
UG Academic board member Al Creighton who responded to many of the criticisms levelled against the institution, cited a lack of self-belief among Guyanese in the University. On the issue of the quality of the university’s graduates, he said the academic output of the university is so much better than the Guyanese people are being led to believe. “Guyanese do not believe in the university. It has served it (Guyana) and contributes to the development of the country but they don’t believe in it”.
He insisted that UG graduates have done well but that there was a need for greater self-belief in the University since this was a main ingredient to take the institution forward.