Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney-General Basil Williams will be attending the 48th meeting of the Council of Legal Education (CLE) in Antigua & Barbuda, from September 1st to September 4th, and among the issues to be discussed are financial contributions to the council and the collaborative legal agreement between the University of Guyana (UG) and the University of the West Indies (UWI).
According to Williams, who was speaking at a press conference yesterday, the Special Meeting of the Executive Council will be held tomorrow (September 1st), while on Friday (September 2nd) the meeting of the CLE will be held where a progress report on the agreement between the two universities will be presented. Elections for the position of Chairman as well as members of the executive committee will also be held.
Williams said that UG is involved in ongoing discussions with UWI on the Revised Draft of the collaborative agreement.
He recalled that the National Assembly recently approved funds for 25% of the economic cost of the fees to be paid by Guyanese law students attending the Hugh Wooding Law School for each of the two years for the academic years 2016 to 2018. The annual sum for 50 law students is $17.9M.
UG law students became concerned last year after Hugh Wooding, without prior notice, 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 now have to pay $5.8 million (TT$182,028) for the two-year programme to obtain their Legal Education Certificate (LEC) from the law school. They previously paid $4.2 million (TT$131,400) for the two-year programme.
