More than one thousand persons have signed a petition undertaken by the Free University of Guyana Movement to get the University of Guyana’s facilities fees waived as a result of classes being held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elson Low, the leader of the group, said the waiver of the fees is even more necessary now given the toll the pandemic has had on the most persons economically.
Current students are required to pay annual facilities fees totaling $50,000 which encompasses examination fees, the UG Students Society fee, a sports fee and a Learning Resource fee, among other things. Lab fees have been waived.
“One could argue that there is no transportation cost since persons will be attending classes online from within the comforts of their home but the cost for internet will still exceed that. Just recently UG’s Vice Chancellor, Dr Paloma [Mohamed-Martin] made it clear to the public that some 500 individuals stopped classes because they are unable to access an internet service. This may be as a result of the financial impact of the pandemic. An example: one person could have been without a job for the extensive time of the lockdown which could have seen them bringing in a million dollars in salary for that period,” Low pointed out.
He indicated that there are persons who lost their jobs or are receiving smaller salaries as a result of being rotated at work, which has also affected their studies. Meanwhile, those who have stayed on and seeking to continue classes may very well be without a job but are depending on someone else to assist in paying their tuition fees along with the facilities fees.
He said many universities elsewhere have lowered tuition due to the move to online tuition. “These are schools like Spellman University, Princeton, Georgetown University; all reduced their tuition by 10%. It is important to know that when students were signing up for their studies originally, they would have been signing up for an in-person experience. This is not what was initially signed up for so as a result, a reduction in tuition is appropriate,” Low stated.
He further noted that there have been talks about a reduction of facilities fees for the last semester. However, this has not been announced formally.
Reflecting on a report produced by the Guyana of Bureau of Statistics for a study in 2017, Low stressed the need for tertiary education to become affordable and accessible to all. He compared Guyana to Trinidad and explained that almost 20 per cent of that country’s population has completed tertiary education.
“…Those statistics should be make tertiary education free here. People will be encouraged to attend university as well encourage more people to go back to school in order to further their education,” he added.
Letters, Low noted, are being prepared and they are to be sent to UG’s Vice Chancellor as well as the Ministry of Education to advocate for the removal of facility fees and for a reduction in tuition fees. “If the university is fully publicly funded, then it will be scrutinized in Parliament as part of the parliamentary budget which will demand transparency at the university to ensure that is progress in the management of the university,” he added.
The informal Free UG Movement was founded last year by students and has carried out two separate protests so far at UG. It has also reached thousands of persons on its Facebook page as it lobbies for tertiary education be accessible to all.
