Dear Editor,
The university undertakes one of the largest value-added operations in Guyana.
No one can dispute or has ever disputed the comment in the editorial of Sunday Stabroek February 1, titled ‘UG,’ that one core problem at the university is the government’s attitude that a decent university can come cheap. The obvious corollary is that should the government seriously desire a better university, it has to increase its financial support. The lack of adequate support has resulted in a deterioration of the university’s service and infrastructure, a trend counterbalanced only by the continuous hard efforts of staff and by budgetary juggling.
Over the last couple of years, however, a different management paradigm has descended on the campus and has become the root cause of the current industrial crisis there. It is premised on the belief that the university could be salvaged not primarily by an injection of new funds but by a massive slash in expenditure. This slash-and-burn approach is captured by the statement from the UG administration to students this Monday to the effect that the university must no longer return to “deficit management.”
On the face of it, reducing financial deficit can be applauded. At UG, however, the devil is in the scope of the plan and its implementation.
Firstly, no comprehensive plan has been presented to the university that outlines what is to be done, why, how, where and when. Instead, an atmosphere of uncertainty now engulfs the campus. Stealth and surprise on key issues have replaced consultation and consensus.
Secondly, cutting costs without a straight analysis of how both quality of education and level of student satisfaction would be impacted conveys a disturbing sense of carelessness. And this is the sense at UG.
Thirdly, the process is being driven by a misunderstanding of ideas on productivity, cost-effectiveness and efficiency, which are not straightforward measures in an organization in the business of knowledge transfer and creation as opposed to sugar and beverages. Cutting costs, for example, is being equated to the much narrower idea of cutting waste. And while cutting waste (always necessary) can increase efficiencies, not all cuts in costs do. Some cuts can undermine what the organization is supposed to produce, quantity and quality wise. One obvious example is the replacement of qualified lecturers by cheaper teacher assistants from the student body. True, this practice occurs in universities abroad but is done selectively and mostly employs post-grad students, of which UG has little to speak of. The much-mouthed objective of making the university more cost-effective therefore puts at risk its capacity to deliver a decent higher education.
Fourthly, the current cost-cutting efforts are further distorted by the long-standing under-appreciation at the national level of what the university has been delivering. If you pause to think of it, the university undertakes one of the largest value-added operations in Guyana. Every year, it admits students with a minimum of five CSEC subjects at Grade III and in four to five years transforms most of them into first-degree graduates. Their social and economic mobility is increased. Their technical and intellectual capacities are increased. They become better assets to society and economy. They become better citizens.
In terms of research, the other main output of the university, much ado has been made about low levels of production. I have always maintained, however, that the overlooked problem in this regard is a national culture that sees little benefit or competitive advantage in research-driven decision-making.
Unfortunately for the university, consequently, the undervaluing and underuse of its two main outputs continue to feed into the reluctance by the state to put money into its operations.
The fifth and final issue with the current cost-cutting at UG is the most vexing and the direct source of the ongoing friction between labour and management. It stems from the attempts by management to save money by cutting academic staff numbers and accordingly increasing the teaching load of those who remain. The consequences of this policy are already unfolding: lecturers are carrying courses outside of their area of competence, and new and inexperienced lecturers are carrying too much load. In this equation to reduce labour costs is the factor of suppressing wage increases to all workers. The university, in a nutshell, wants to reduce or remove its deficits by overloading the backs of its workers.
To make its case respectable, the university has mounted a PR campaign unparalleled in its bad intent for an education institution. It repeatedly attacks and maligns its academic staff in the media and in internal meetings (most recently, at a meeting with students) as underperformers, idlers or fraudsters. To this end, management cherry-picks data and presents it with much propagandist fanfare as evidence of staff’s collective guilt.
This practice brings pure harm. It is also shamelessly unjustified as no proper measure of the performance of academic staff is even attempted. The go-to metric, contact hours, fails to consider a myriad of other factors such as class size, scheduled and unscheduled non-classroom face-time with students, other duties of value to the university (such as administration, university and public service, and research), lecture preparation, and marking of scripts. Other universities put a value to all such work and reward staff accordingly.
If there are shortcomings in the performance of lecturers, as there would be, let’s have a discussion of the issue after we get a fair and full assessment of what they actually do. The university administration should accept this challenge but prefers to engage in badmouthing.
One concluding thought. A former UG Vice Chancellor once remarked, in praise of staff, that it was a wonder the university was still running. What he must have understood is the value of the immeasurable input of staff goodwill in keeping the university alive. It is this goodwill that motivates staff to do things beyond the call of duty for the university, most times unnoticed and unclaimed. This goodwill greases the system. To prevent further damage and achieve real improvements, the university needs a structured and holistic approach.
Yours faithfully,
Sherwood Lowe
