Dear Editor,
It has been reported that 25 graduates of the class of 2014 from the University of Guyana (UG) have eventually been cleared and granted automatic placement at the Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS), University of the West Indies (UWI) at St Augustine Campus after financial and other modalities have been negotiated and cleared by Guyana’s Attorney General. The agreement which was in place for the automatic placement of Guyanese law students to complete their legal education at HWLS was suddenly terminated by the Council of Legal Education in the West Indies.
This snafu has raised a number of troubling questions for Guyanese. Firstly, Guyana has a number of incompetent attorneys who collect their fees upfront but fail to provide the legal services paid for in a professional, timely and knowledgeable manner, and often hold clients at their mercy.
The country is not short of attorneys (except in certain specialized areas) and because their skills do not significantly boost Guyana’s economy, public funds should not be used to subsidize legal education at UG, HWLS and elsewhere.
Further, those who have benefited from public subsidy of their legal education have not provided any significant pro bono service to the community worthy of justifying the continued public expenditure to educate more attorneys in an already crowded field. During the 1950s and 1960s when Guyana was short of attorneys, law students paid for their education at the Inns of Court in London. They received no subsidies and if some did, they were bonded.
Secondly, Guyana is not entitled to any freebies with respect to education for its students.
Education does not come cheap and if Guyana wants to benefit from the educational facilities being offered in Trinidad or elsewhere it has to pay for them. Guyana should not disguise its attempt to use its Caricom membership as an entitlement to provide subsidized education for its students.
If the government is serious in providing complete legal education for its students it should provide the resources to allow UG to seek affiliation to provide supplemental legal education at home necessary for the accreditation of its legal students. After all, Guyana should not be humiliated and belittled in the region as a ‘freeloader’.
It is unfortunate that President Ramotar has not realized that Caricom’s future validity as an institution is very much in doubt as its operation is heavily subsidized by the European Union and others, and this is unlikely to continue indefinitely. Most of its members are too poor and indebted to pay the dues needed to keep the institution as a viable entity and keep their membership strong, thus enabling them to have the clout necessary to enforce agreed upon resolutions.
Guyanese continue to suffer as they are unable to move freely in the region without being hassled and deported, or get off Trinidad-owned Caribbean Airlines during its long wait on the tarmac at Piarco as they journey en route to North America. Therefore, what does Caricom have to offer Guyanese if basic resolutions agreed upon are not implemented? Caribbean leaders are unwilling to cede any of their political power for the good of the majority, or share some of their country’s resources with the less fortunate regions with which they are supposed to share a common heritage.
It is time Guyanese wake up and realize how the government is wasting the country’s scarce resources to prop up Caricom – a failed organization which has become noted for its hollow talk and no substance. There are other areas of the economy where the government could spend those scare resources wisely to improve the lives of its people.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Sohan
