Dear Editor,
The University of Guyana is currently faced with industrial action over the issue of salary increases for staff members. One can only hope that reason and good sense will prevail and a resolution found within the shortest possible time.
I share the view that the university needs an injection of resources, both in terms of academic staff and facilities upgrade. What I have a difficulty with is a perception that is being created in some quarters that conditions at the university have deteriorated over the years and that the university is starved of resources by the government to a point where it is incapable of effectively fulfilling its mandate as a teaching and research institution.
The fact is that the resources provided to the university have been increasing substantially since the current PPP/C administration assumed office on October 5, 1992. Prior to 1992, there was hardly any allocation made to the university to undertake capital and critical maintenance works. The subvention given to the university was woefully inadequate to cover recurrent expenditures including salary increases.
Today there is a much higher level of financial inflows to the university both from government subvention and from the student loan facility which is met largely from the treasury. A major problem has to do with the fact that the student loan is hardly revolving as a significant number of students who graduated from the university fail to honour their financial obligations to the government. Only a relatively small number of students pay on their own which puts additional pressure on the treasury to meet the cost of university education, a situation further compounded by rising student numbers and an increase in student fees.
Despite the many constraints, the university has seen significant expansion in terms of student intake and the range of course offerings.
I beg to differ with those who seek to devalue the role played by the university in terms of meeting the human resource needs of the country, even though I am willing to concede that more can be done by the university to raise its research profile.
The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) seems more concerned with churning out anti-government propaganda than coming up with innovative and out-of-the-box thinking on how to enhance the quality of national discourse on key and fundamental issues of national importance.
The university needs to do some serious introspection and careful re-strategizing on the way forward. Putting the blame on the government and the University Council is at best shortsighted and not in its best interest.
Yours faithfully,
Hydar Ally
