Dear Editor,
“Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem” – The Vice-Chancellor’s words were indelibly etched in my mind as I left the “student consultations.” Twenty years have passed since the University of Guyana implemented tuition fees. Up until this week, that fee had never changed from its value of $127,000. Come August, new students will pay an annual fee of $210,000, a 65% increase. The hike (to call it what it is, as against the overly-moderate ‘realignment’) was long anticipated and should come as a surprise to no one. However, as much as the increase was expected, it was most certainly not inevitable.
There are two troubling facts that one must recognize when seeking to understand why the hike was never a fait accompli. The first is state negligence and the second student apathy. Since coming into power, the current administration has controlled the university’s highest decision-making forum, the University Council. They would have been privy to financial reports and budgets of the university on a yearly basis at a minimum, and would have been well aware of the predicament the university was in, long before the public even knew there was a problem. The current Vice-Chancellor is certainly not the first administrator to recognize the university’s troubles and call for an increase in income, whether through tuition fees, subvention or otherwise. It would have been the Council’s mandate to find solutions to a situation that was cascading out of control. For many years the option of a tuition fees increase was rejected in its entirety by the government-controlled Council. One would have made the assumption that this rejection implied that the state was going to fill the gap created between the university’s income and expenditure, by providing a sufficient subvention. That, however, was a wrong assumption and today we the students must bear the brunt of this ineptitude.
Speculation is rife as to why the state allowed such a situation to develop. I prefer at this juncture to leave such conjectures for the political analysts. Not because I think it is unimportant, but because there is a greater issue which deserves attention. The reality is that even if the university were to charge us the true economic cost of our respective programmes (which exceeds $300,000), we would grudgingly accept it. As Freddie Kissoon puts it, we are “a nation of sheep.”
Vivid images still linger in my mind as I think back to two years ago when the student union joined forces with the workers’ unions to stage what was supposed to be a campus uprising. ‘Operation Rescue UG’ managed to close the campus for about three consecutive weeks – quite an effort considering that most stakeholders were noticeably absent. Back then (a mere two years ago), our primary call was for better funding for the university. However, the lines were clearly drawn and received support from the unions; there was to be no increase in tuition. Any increase in finances would have to come from the state. Duane Edwards (the then UGSS president), Adel Lily, Amir Dillawar and I were the main proponents from the student body who opposed that position. Unfortunately, as much as our call seemed noble and reasonable, we did not get the support of our colleagues to make such a demand.
And here I am two years later, witnessing the destruction of the principle I once stood for. The state has not only allowed the university to put itself in a most desperate position, it has shifted the burden of rescuing the institution squarely onto the shoulders of the students. Of course, I don’t expect as much as a whimper from the student population. My final year at the university is a most welcome one.
Yours faithfully,
Mahendra Doraisami