The top 25 students from the University of Guyana’s Department of Law will be granted automatic entry to the Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS) for the new semester, but they will also face a tuition hike of over 30%, prompting a call for government intervention.
At a post-Cabinet press briefing on Wednesday, Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman decried the tuition hike as a burden to deny Guyanese their earned opportunity to further their education.
He said the good news that automatic entry would continue for top students, relayed by Attorney General Basil Williams to Cabinet, came with the announcement of the hike, which will cause “hardship for most students if not all.”
While the government will not be assuming the cost of the increase, it will be looking at scholarship programmes to alleviate the burden, Trotman said.
Guyanese students will now have to pay $5.8M (TT$182,028) for the two-year programme to obtain their Legal Education Certificate (LEC) from the Trinidad-based law school. They previously paid $4.2M (TT$131,400) for the two-year programme.
Additionally, under the law school’s new policy, Guyanese students will have to pay the fees upfront unlike in previous years when they paid via a payment plan.
The increase in tuition will not only affect prospective students, but also students who were already accepted into the programme last year and are set to commence their final year. The across-the-board increase will also affect students of Dominica, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and other common law jurisdictions. However, the Barbados government may assume up to 80% of the cost per each student accepted.
In response to the situation, the University of Guyana Law Society (UGLS) has called for the government to intervene to see a favourable resolution for students.
In a letter published in Friday’s Stabroek News, UGLS President Chevy Devonish noted that many of the 27 UG graduates preparing for their second and final year of LEC studies at HWLS come from families which, on their own, could not afford the tuition but managed to muster the fee.
“The UGLS is aware that some students were still in the process of accumulating the tuition for the final year when the new fees were released,” he wrote, while also pointing out that in addition to tuition many of these students have to find funds to cover housing, food, electricity, gas, and transportation costs.
He added that the UGLS has spoken to several of the students since the new fees were posted and they all expressed concern that the increased fees may result in a premature end to their LEC studies as they are unsure whether they will be able to find the additional funds needed by the stipulated deadline.
As a result, Devonish said the UGLS recommends that government cover the additional amount either through a loan or work-service arrangement with students who are in need.
“If this is not feasible, government may consider, in a one-off arrangement, paying the school’s economic cost for the coming academic year.
This would serve to reduce what students going into their final year are required to pay. Yet another option would be to engage financial entities towards having them render assistance to the students,” he wrote, while adding that government may also try engaging the officials of HWLS to allow local students some amount of leeway.
“Our UG graduates have limited options. They need our assistance. We need to help them in one way or another,” he added.
Devonish also made a new call for Guyana to establish a local law school at which students can read for their LECs. He recalled that the Council for Legal Education (CLE) had approved a past request for Guyana to set up a law school and that a location had even been selected.
Further, he pointed out that President David Granger, during an engagement with UG students during the recent elections campaign, indicated that his government will work toward ensuring that such a school becomes a reality before his tenure is through. “We submit, however, that the time is ripe, and that steps should commence as soon as is practicable,” he added.
