A brief media release issued by the Office of the Presidency last Wednesday alluded to a meeting on the same day between President David Granger and University of Guyana Chancellor Professor Nigel Harris. Not a great deal was said in the release about the substance or the outcomes of the meeting even though, in a comment made after the meeting, Professor Harris did sound a distinctly upbeat note over what he felt was the consonance between the President’s views and concerns and those of the university community as to what needs to be done to remove the institution from its present doldrums.
That is not all that has happened to UG over the past week or so. The day after the meeting between President Granger and Professor Harris the Transformational Task Force (TTF) set up by the University Council in November to “reconstruct and reposition” the institution met in pursuit of its undertaking of helping UG to achieve a “level of excellence necessary to propel the growth and development of Guyana,” which, one imagines, ought to be the substantive function of the institution.
Incidentally, with the former Vice Chancellor of UG Professor Jacob Opadeyi having severed ties with UG as of today and with today, as well, being the closing date for submission of applications by persons seeking to replace him, UG seems set to begin a journey, hopefully a brief one, which, for the sake of the beleaguered institution as well as for Guyana’s sake, simply must take the institution forward. UG’s problems, truth be told, have been an albatross around this nation’s neck for far too long.
What comes to mind immediately is the importance of having a new Vice Chancellor take office as quickly as possible, since one assumes that whoever is appointed to the position will immediately become a key member of the team to “reconstruct and reposition” the university. As far as this newspaper understands the recruitment procedure is likely to go beyond the confines of the conventional interviewing of candidates who will also have to make their respective cases for preferment to a wider stakeholder group. What that means, conceivably, is that UG will probably be without a new Vice Chancellor until at least the start of the next semester though this does not mean that the institution has to stand still.
To return, briefly, to last week’s meeting between President Granger and Professor Harris, it is a good sign that the two would appear to be on the same page as far as issues pertaining to the “repositioning” of UG is concerned, since, in their respective capacities, both will clearly have to play pivotal roles if the reform of the institution is to succeed. Professor Harris’s extended tenure in academia including his years as Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies positions him to want to focus, a priori, on improving the quality of service offered by UG in terms of its responsibility to its students, and one suspects that in the period ahead Professor Harris’s imprimatur will be reflected in meaningful changes on the Council of the University that seeks to reflect the institution’s substantive mission. President Granger, of course, is a former student of the University of Guyana who has long had his own views on the importance of a university that offers more to its students and to the country as a whole, and there can be no better vantage point than that of the country’s Chief Executive from which to contribute meaningfully to the process.
Interestingly, we are told that part of the focus of the envisaged reform process embraces the reform of the 1965 Act that established UG. The TTF, we understand, deliberated on, among other things, the importance of the council including members with specific core competencies relevant to UG’s needs including management, law, accounting and resource mobilization. More than that, the idea of making amendments to the Act is believed to centre around a push to create an institution that is rooted in vision, trust, transparency and effective leadership. Indeed, not only is it desirable that the University of Guyana Council become accountable to its broad range of stakeholders but also, there must be created a clear and unmistakable dividing line between the respective roles of the council and the administration, a line that has been continually been crossed to the detriment of UG. Minimizing the impact of partisan politics on the day-to-day functioning of the university is, we are told, a critical focus of the TTF.
There are, of course, other issues that are equally important to the future of the University of Guyana that would have been contemplated by the TTF during its deliberations including, critically, the issue of resource mobilization. It is hardly worth repeating that if UG is to meet the expectations of the nation it can no longer depend on financing arrangements that allow only for periodic dipping into the Consolidated Fund. This is where the institution would require a significantly upgraded planning and development component that can explore the various ways in which UG can generate its own funding through, for example, research and development-oriented collaboration with the private sector and actively seeking to secure local and external consultancies for faculties within the university. There may be something to be said too for a greater focus on government offering tax concessions to business houses in exchange for financial investment in the university.
We can, of course, no longer bury our heads in the sand about the need to move tuition fees closer to a condition resembling consistency with the cost of delivery of the various courses, though it would be altogether counterproductive for the university to persist in its indulgence of completely decoupling increased fees from quality assurance considerations, including the provision of vastly improved student services. There can be no question that if UG is to persuade the nation that it is indeed seeking to turn a corner, it must begin to show a clear inclination to immerse itself in best practices in so far as the various facets of service delivery are concerned.
We have witnessed previous discourses on the matter of reforming the University of Guyana, none of which have gotten very far for the simple reason we believe, that on the whole those who rule appeared to have come to see the institution as a sideshow, and worse, as a kind of political playground, often, for small men (and women) who cast long shadows but who, even now, are unable to establish any real nexus between the state of health of the university and the well-being of Guyana.
During an interview with the recently appointed Registrar of UG, Dr Nigel Gravesande, he made the point to this newspaper that there was need for a more “open and meaningful relationship” between UG and its stakeholders, and here he included the media. He envisages the introduction of a corporate communication regime at the university as part of what he described as an “integrated marketing structure.” There is, we believe, much virtue in a circumstance where any unfolding improvement in the quality of our university occurs in the full glare of the public so that they can be part of the experience, and bringing the public into the loop, so to speak, as far as the reconstruction and repositioning of the university is concerned, is as good a place as any to start.
