Guyana could become UWI contributor again … decision could see reduction in tuition fees for Guyanese students
SOME 40 or more years after Guyana stopped paying monies to the University of the West Indies (UWI) as a contributing country, the Government of Guyana could be reconsidering that position. At a post-cabinet press briefing yesterday at the Ministry of the Presidency, Governance Minister Raphael Trotman spoke about President David Granger’s recent visit to the UWI in Trinidad, where he and other officials from the University and the Trinidad and Tobago Government opened a UWI St Augustine campus in south Trinidad.
Trotman related the sentiments of the President who was impressed with the strides the UWI had made in its over 60 year history. President Granger is also a product of the UWI St Augustine campus.
Asked whether Guyana could once again become a contributing country to the regional university, Trotman said, “The matter is up for active discussion by Cabinet.” He signalled that both Finance Minister Winston Jordan and Attorney General Basil Williams were involved in those considerations.
Cabinet, according to Trotman, will consider the extent of Guyana’s possible contributions to paying an economic cost to the University of the West Indies. The Minister is optimistic there is room for “a working relationship between the University of Guyana and the University of the West Indies.”
The only contention, Trotman disclosed, was whether Guyana should become integrated into the UWI system, or whether the country, and the University of Guyana, should remain independent.
UWI St Augustine Campus Principal, Professor Clement Sankat, spoke with this reporter in March of this year on Guyana possibly becoming part of the UWI fold, since it was a founding member of the UWI.
Professor Sankat, a Guyanese national living in Trinidad since 1969, said Guyana has become detached from the Caribbean environment. Sankat believed that the detachment resulted, as seen in other CARICOM countries, from the competition of national institutions, like the University of Guyana, with regional ones like the UWI.
The Campus Principal said it is only through education and the movement of people that Guyana could become linked to the Caribbean. “If that engagement with the Region does not get deeper,” he continued, “then I feel that Guyana’s future, and its integration, may more be linked to South America.”
While clarifying that Guyana’s integration to South America is not a bad thing, Sankat lauded the UWI as being the “bastion, a repository, and also a generator of knowledge on all things West Indian,” of which Guyana is part.
Sankat recalled his meeting with former President Bharrat Jagdeo and then Education Minister Sheik Baksh during the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration, when he discussed the possibility of Guyanese students pursuing their Masters degrees or even Doctorates at the UWI. Those pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
The University of the West Indies was formed in 1948 when its first campus was set up in Jamaica. Other campuses were set up in Barbados in Trinidad and Tobago in the early 1960s. At that time, Guyana was seeking independence from the British Crown and had already moved to set up the University of Guyana in 1962, operating in the Queen’s College compound.
Upon the 1964 establishment of the University of Guyana campus at Turkeyen, Greater Goergetown, there were considerations to have monies redirected from UWI to the local university.
That decision, which was finalised between the late 60s and early 70s, saw Guyanese students attending the University of Guyana as the premier institution in Guyana, although Guyana was a founding member of the UWI.
With the introduction of regional integration systems like CARICOM, the UWI has served as the hub for higher education in the Region with scholars and laureates moulding the region’s minds to become active participants in advancing the Caribbean development agenda.
With Guyana not being a contributing country to the UWI, Guyanese students are classed in the bracket of students from “non-contributing Association of Caribbean States (ACS) countries.” The other two brackets are students from “contributing countries”, and those from the “international” community.
Guyanese students today pay an average of US$175 per academic credit. A university course in one academic term has three credits.
It was in 2007 that Guyana was moved from its status as a “non-contributing country” to that of a “non-contributing ACS country.”
Sankat’s advocacy saw Guyanese students saving a considerable amount of money since previously Guyanese students were expected to pay US$375 per academic credit under the classification of “international” students.
If the Guyana Government were to follow through with the decision to once again contribute to the UWI, Guyanese students could pay a considerably low rate in tuition.
Government contributions account for 80% of the student’s tuition which means the average Guyanese student would pay rates as low as of US$1000 per academic year, similar to current University of Guyana rates.
The decision by the Guyana Government, if approved, could see favour with many in opening the doors for cultural, social, and economic exchanges between the Caribbean Community and Guyana, one of the four founding members.
Notable Guyanese who graduated from the UWI include President David Granger, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan, former UWI Chancellor Professor Nigel Harris, UWI Campus Principal Professor Clement Sankat, and the late Leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) Dr Walter Rodney, who was also a lecturer at the UWI campus in Jamaica.
