Dear Editor,
The beginning of the academic year in which Guyanese students have been asked to shoulder the burden of paying higher tuition fees at the University of Guyana (UG) has already begun to bring home negative effects on the poor students and the university itself. And the more the PPP tries to pretend that all is well at UG, sooner rather or later, they will have to face the reality that the institution is crumbling. Only an immature and uncaring government would allow its only tertiary institution to collapse owing to the lack of funds. Is building the Marriott Hotel a higher priority than an education at UG? Is building a new airport to accommodate only three flights per day more important than financing UG? Is refusing to finance or ignoring the problems at UG a wise choice? Why is the Minister of Education remaining silent on such an important issue? Why is the Minister of Education ignoring the plight of the poor students and UG which is in dire need of financial help? Dark days are ahead for the university.
The first indicators of the decline in enrolment at UG suggest clearly that UG will suffer a heavy financial blow and that the government, in its one-dimensional approach to education, had not given sufficient thought to the full social consequences of the reversal of the late Forbes Burnham’s free education policy. This was a humongous mistake by the PPP regime which does not believe in educating youths—a group they have abandoned. We believe that no one should be denied a university education because they are poor. As the old saying goes “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” But the PPP has not realized the importance of education to the nation as yet.
Had it not been witnessed, it would have been difficult to believe that entire programmes would have had such low registration and the UG population would have decreased instead of increased. Given the confusion over government loans, actual registration is lower. A university without some of its foundational programmes exists in name only. Clearly, if the PPP government’s tertiary education policy is not modified, not only UG will be reduced to a pale shadow of what a university is supposed to be but it will eventually close its doors.
The deeper story behind these sharp declines in some faculties is a tale of abandonment of the poor and the working class in Guyana by the PPP, since these declines are negligible in the more expensive Faculties of Law and Medical Sciences, where the rich students can afford to pay and where the investment risks are lower. While the poorer students because of no fault of their own cannot afford to pay the increase in tuition fees, the rich have the financial resources to send their children not only to UG but to Ivy League colleges and universities in Canada and the United States.
Indeed, the anecdotal evidence of the class cleavage was revealed clearly at the anaemic registration in the hard sciences and in some of the other faculties. Gone are the long lines of students registering for courses in the Law and Medical Faculties. Instead, the fortunate students accompanied by cheque-signing parents or self-driven in bulging SUVs are the new reality, not only in terms of education but in almost everything. The emptiness and disappointments are plain view for all to see, and we want to tell the minority PPP regime that the poor are tired of being poor.
The incidents of crime and gun-related homicides perpetrated by young males, which the minority PPP regime and the Minister of Education must address, are likely to increase, as more of the young men who would have been occupied with university study are now thrown onto the streets for a free education of an entirely different sort—crime and gang warfare. The trajectory is that crime will continue to wreak havoc on the nation.
Those who support the rise in tuition may gloat, but rest assured the chickens are coming home to roost. Despite the economic urgency, a caring and responsible government would have felt compelled to explore alternatives other than to raise the tuition fees at UG where most of the poorer students are struggling to put food on the table. The poor and powerless are abandoned far too easily by the PPP regime.
Yours faithfully,
Asquith Rose
Harish Singh
