Students of the University of Guyana take umbrage at the recent statement by the Secretary of the Cabinet, Dr Roger Luncheon, relating to students at the University of Guyana being involved in a legitimate and humanistic exercise to highlight the issues and problems which beset them on a daily basis at our most cherished institution.
Instead of trying to understand the reasons and the legitimate basis for these actions, Dr Luncheon sought to use language in a negative and intimidating manner to brand students as reckless and extremist. In contrast to the tone of Dr Luncheon’s statement, we would rather seek to make clear the legitimate basis of the actions of the students of the University of Guyana.
The university is an ailing institution, that is to say, everything that could be wrong is wrong. At the very high level of the University Council, petty politics and political witch-hunting seem to trump the real needs and interest of the students, the institution itself and the country which the institution is intended to serve.
The administrative level of the university presents its own problems. The slothful and at times unresponsive nature of the administration could be deduced from the following: It is going on to a year now that, responding to the requests made by students the proprietor of a mobile food outlet has been seeking permission to provide its service on the Turkeyen campus. This service is much needed so as to give students a wider variety of options when they purchase anything to eat. Every time the administration is contacted in this regard, the following tune is repeated ad nauseum, ‘The lawyers ain’t finish drafting the contract as yet.‘
In an institution that takes in an average of fifteen hundred students every year, there is only one ID printing machine. The machine breaks down regularly owing to overuse. The regular breaking down of the machine stalls the registration process which in turn affects students’ access to certain services such as the library and IT centres. There were even reported instances of students being unable to write exams because the machine broke down and they were not able to secure their student identification cards. This is a clear example of students suffering because of an ill equipped administration.
The state of the laboratories in all the sciences faculties can best be described as deplorable. Equipment is either outdated, in a state of disrepair, or simply non-existent. Students using some of these labs are expected to interact with dangerous chemicals without the basic protective gear. Classrooms and lecture theatres are either inadequate, lack furniture, are poorly ventilated, leak, or are characterised by some other defect. The state of the toilet facilities is another vexatious source of concern for students.
Apart from the fact that the student population has outgrown the current facilities, the facilities that are available are badly maintained. They are always in an unhygienic condition, never have toilet tissue and seldom have running water or any other basic sanitary necessities.
All faculties and schools are affected by an endemic shortage of lecturers in general and amply qualified lecturers in particular. The final address by the out-going Vice-Chancellor, Prof Lawrence Carrington, captured this situation quite graphically.
“We will not justify the label of university if all we can show in a teaching and research staff of three hundred and fifty nine academics are nine professors and seventeen senior lecturers.
Only two departments are headed by professors, both temporary and only four by senior lecturers, one temporary.”
As telling as the above excerpt is, we must add that many of our students, ranging from freshmen to seniors, are being taught by lecturers with first degrees – students are lecturing students.
This debilitating shortage of lecturers is affecting the quality of instruction the students receive since lecturers are expected to fetch extra loads to make up for the shortage. No wonder, then, that only two of the programmes at the university are accredited. Moreover, even the two that are accredited are in danger of losing their accreditation.
The library lacks any up-to-date books and journals and is filled with a collection of out-dated, antediluvian texts characteristic more of an archive than a library.
All these problems with which we the students are beset are enumerated not to taint the image of the institution – God knows we’ve been enduring these problems for far too long now – but to explain that it is only expected that students, overwhelmed by these difficulties, would react in a manner that would bring public attention to our problems. It is also to convey to Dr Luncheon and those who think like him, that if there is anything that is extreme and astonishing at the university, it is certainly not the students.
Yours faithfully,
Duane EdwardsPresident
University of Guyana Students’ Society
