On Tuesday the government used its majority to pass an amendment order in relation to the University of Guyana Act over the objections of the opposition. The order concerned the size of the UG Council, which under the statute is set at 26 members and which has now been increased to a total of 32.
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand who piloted the motion through Parliament laid stress on the fact the move was intended to give effect to that section of the Constitution which dealt with the establishment of an inclusive democracy. The objective was to make the university more inclusive and representative of Guyanese society as a whole, she argued, going on to say that it was also important to involve young people in decision-making. If she was supposedly all for inclusivity on the UG Council that certainly did not extend to Parliament itself, since her government adamantly refused to send the amendment order to Special Select Committee, as requested by the opposition.
The operations of the University Council are too arcane for the average Guyanese to bother about, preoccupied as he or she is with trying to make a living, but while the body may not be in the forefront of the popular consciousness, it is still nevertheless important. Under Statute 13 of the Act the Council among various other things has the power to make appointments; institute, confirm or abolish any professorship, associate professorship or other academic office on the recommendation of the Academic Board; manage the finances, investments, property and business affairs of the university, and appoint bankers and agents where expedient; invest any university monies; enter into, vary and terminate contracts; make provision for research; and dismiss any member of staff pursuant to the prescribed procedure.
The statute stipulates that the 26 members should include the Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor and the Pro-Chancellor. The Committee of Deans, the Academic Board, the Guild of Graduates, the Students’ Society and UG Workers Union are all entitled to have one member each on the Council, while the Ministries of Education and Finance also send one representative. This is in addition to the governing party having one member, while the opposition and the Guyana Trades Union Congress also have one member each.
The total is accounted for by the Education Ministry which has the power to nominate seven additional members, four of whom should come from non-governmental organisations representing the interest of women, farmers, Amerindians and business, while the other three should be people who can contribute to the institution in the medical and legal fields. The last six are nominated by the Vice-Chancellor from named international university associations.
Under the new arrangements the Vice Chancellor’s quota of nominees has been reduced from six to four which in addition to the overall increase of six, now gives the Ministry, or by extension the government, eight new seats on the Council. It was announced that one of those would go to FITUG, which is perceived as the government union body, while the GTUC is aligned with the opposition. This decision hardly requires any explanation; the governing party being consistent in its efforts to reduce the influence of the opposition in any institution.
The next three appointments which have been announced are more puzzling. There will now be a representative each from Christian, Muslim and Hindu organizations. Why any of them should be given a seat on a university council, unless of course an individual appointee happens to have academic credentials quite apart from his or her religious ones, is not easily explained. Article 6 of the University of Guyana Act reads: “No religious, political or racial test shall be imposed on or required of any person in order to entitle him to be a student or member of the University or to occupy any position in or on the staff of the University.”
Since there should not be any religious input into appointments what are these religious representatives doing there? In the first place they do not reflect the whole gamut of faiths in this society, and in the second, in the case of Christians especially there are innumerable denominations, so why one and not another one? As things stand students are allowed to form religious societies, and this is as it should be, but it is an entirely different matter when representatives by virtue of their religion sit on a Council which controls appointments and a variety of academic offices. Open-mindedness should be one of the hallmarks of such nominees in a university context; they should not be ideologically unreceptive to new ideas that may come into conflict with their own religious precepts.
Where the other seats were concerned there was a lot of talk in the House about youth and Amerindians, as well as people who can make contributions in specific fields, but as the opposition recognised it was all about the numerical political balance; the government through its ability to control the majority of nominees indirectly now controls the Council. It is not as if the University has ever been free of political domination by one side or the other, but one might have thought we had reached a point where we could move on from that and rescue the institution from the malaise of past decades and give it autonomy and independence ‒ and money – so it could lead the region in research and innovation. Continued political control will not achieve that.
The narrowing of the political space is illustrated by the fact that the Vice Chancellor has now been deprived of the power of nominating two international academic figures in her allocation, which is surely a loss to the independent and quality functioning of the Council. During the parliamentary debate Ms Coretta McDonald was reported as saying that the politicisation of education could have serious consequences, including the erosion of public trust, the stifling of innovation and the limiting of academic freedom. She is right about that. If the government is serious about reforming UG it has to begin by relinquishing the control levers before it does anything else.
