Attorney General Basil Williams, while remaining adamant that government cannot stand the cost of the increased tuition fees for Guyanese law students at the Hugh Wooding Law School, on Thursday said that it will now seek to approach the Council of Legal Education in an attempt to have the issue resolved.
“Is not that the government must do. The government doesn’t have money. Every day there is some debt. It is not like we can take money and give to students. Money is not there. All that noise they talking about us with salaries we are wondering where all of this money is coming from”, he said, when told that students are now beginning to panic as the start of the new academic year approaches.
Hugh Wooding, located on the St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies recently announced a more than 30% increase in its tuition fees as well as changes in its payment scheme which would require prospective and continuing students to pay 100% of their fees at the beginning of the school year. Guyanese students will now have to pay $5.8 million (TT$182,028) for the two-year programme to obtain their Legal Education Certificate (LEC) from the Trinidad-based law school. They previously paid $4.2 million (TT$131,400) for the two-year programme.
Students also previously had the option of paying 50% of the fees at the beginning of each semester, September and January respectively.
This change could see cash-strapped Guyanese law students unable to complete their legal education owing to an inability to comply with the payment guidelines.
Giving Stabroek News an update on the plight of the law students Williams said that he now has to look at approaching the Council of Legal Education as it relates to the “sudden increases in fees and short notice too.” He noted that the council has the power under its regulations, to intervene.
Asked if the government is working really hard to rectify this situation he responded, “Well we have to look at it and make representations all the time for them,” adding that the government cannot afford to take over the payment of fees for fifty students. “We are not in a position. We are just burdened by debt,” he repeated.
Following a meeting with members of the University of Guyana administration last month to “brainstorm” possible solutions Williams told reporters that in the long term the government will be looking to open its own law school, while short-term proposals include possible subsidization of the cost for Guyanese students. These proposals were to be taken to Cabinet for a decision to be made.
Williams had described the situation as a virtual crisis.
The affected students are depending on government’s efforts at finding a speedy resolution as their payment deadline looms with the registration deadline.
