Dear Editor,
Everything happens online these days. A quick search of the internet will deliver thousands of results from universities offering their programmes through an online platform. This has proven very useful for those universities as they can cater for more students without having to cater for classroom space for them. However, it is not just the universities which have benefited but the students as well; they no longer have to go through what has become known as the formal schooling setting, where students have to be present physically in a classroom with a teacher or lecturer.
They can now be wherever they want as long as they have an internet connection. This probably is the way many will get their tertiary and other education in the future.
Our own University of Guyana decided several years ago to go down this path offering very robust content filled courses online. When I saw the opportunity, I decided that this was for me, as I work and travel frequently. I was excited about the prospects of finally getting a degree from UG as I was not able to do in the past because of my work and other factors which prevented me from doing full-time courses at the Turkeyen campus. I applied and was successful, and enrolled for the online programme. That is where my nightmare started; this semester should have been the beginning of my third year at the university, however due the many delays on the delivery of my courses I and others are still to write our final examinations for our second year. Hopefully, this will happen in the last week of November.
The programme has been plagued with problems from the beginning. I understand that any new programme will have teething problems, however eventually these get resolved. There seems to be very slow progress in fixing the problems with this programme. There is no effective coordination; there is red tape before things get done; there is uncertainty because of a lack of information for the students; there is a lack of tutors to take the courses; and the list goes on.
Only recently a meeting was called with the students of the online programme, and even this seems not to have been organized properly. Notices were sent out late to students and tutors who were supposed to have turned up for a session with students in the afternoon. Most failed to show up except for a few who can counted on one hand.
A check at the university will reveal the high number of students dropping out of the programme as a result of the many issues plaguing it. A few of us who believe that the programme can work have remained and have tried to work with the university to ensure that we complete our degrees. We continue to make sacrifices; however it seems like the university has no regard for us and demonstrates this in the way we are treated ‒ second class.
There are many other students who are quite frustrated with the programme and hope the university can really get its act together. In the past I attempted to have some of the issues addressed by writing an email to a council representative who forwarded it to the Vice-Chancellor, who then sent it to the coordinator of the online programme at the time. I visited her office and did not meet her as she was engaged in some other activity. A promise was made that I would be contacted; this never happened.
It is my hope that through this medium, the plight of the online students of the University of Guyana will be highlighted and the administrators can look to having the many issues resolved as soon as possible.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
