Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 13, 2010 Letters
Dear Editor,
I offer my little piece on happenings at the University of Guyana (UG), the premiere academic institution in the country.
At best, the milieu is very depressing and suggests the continuing decadence. I say this based on a number of factors, and these have been the norm for quite some time now.
It is only in the last week or so that course grades have been made available, and from what I have heard, there are still some subject areas that are. Many times, prior to the availability of the grades, lecturers explained that the grades are pending, because the second marker (not external, since this is no longer happening) is not finished with the assessment.
I find this strange, as many times, that second marker is in an ancillary position to the actual marker that is the one who actually taught the course. I think in the name of decency this should be explained and corrected.
The second issue is that of actually going to the admissions division to obtain one’s grades. For one, it calls for some amount of patience. The staff in charge has to painstakingly go through by hand every single course, and this takes quite a long time. Just imagine attending to 25 students, each with four courses. Wow! Also, grades are of a personal and private issue. However, the ‘over-burdened’ staff member has a way of being non-private, a situation which she can correct. All that is needed is for a special grade slip form to be made available. Students can then provide the necessary information (name, student’s number, course IDs), and these can be collected within a specified time frame. Then if any further corroboration is required, these grades slip can be taken to the faculty office or the specific lecturer. I hope that this situation be rectified early. After all UG is the premiere institution. Now how about a real killer? Noise on the campus.
First, the minibuses do a great job – they have their park and they are orderly. When it rains, these buses take the commuters right into the parking lot, where access to shelter is quick and easy. Alas this is not so with the hire cars. I find it strange that these cars have to take their clients all the way to the exact spot of disembarkment. This entails sometimes four separate stops, and every time these vehicles accelerate, the classes in the Js and the sciences have to be disturbed.
To add to this, some of the rich academic pretenders engage their vehicles’ alarms, and when activated (for whatever reason), this turns out to be most noisome (it even occurred during examination period). When one takes all of this and adds students’ horse-like frolicking and cavorting, music on laptops and cell phones, it creates quite a bedlam.
What is shocking is that this new culture has become quickly entrenched and no one cares, or maybe has the fortitude to arrest it. Just like ‘smoke zones’ there should be ‘noise zones’ for the obstreperous, vacuous time wasters.
There is a huge ‘ball park’ and it is about time the UG authorities that be relegate the far North-Eastern section to them. (Of course build a shed). Now a final point, maybe the most serious one too.
At UG, there are just too many first degree lecturers. These may suffice if they are involved in some kind of academic furtherance. Some of these barely have knowledge of the subject matter they are engaged in teaching.
This should not be at all. Many of these subsidiary operatives may boast a high GPA, but as we all know, many distinction students are not ‘bright’ (they crammed well, and being a lecturer calls for more than a good graduating students).
For example, there are some ‘fledglings’ who cannot cope with students who have read beyond them, and these ever-expanding and budding academics are met with, “well I never heard of that.” Thus one gets a poor grade for work done in assignments/tests.
This should not be. If as first degree tutors these ‘underlings’ evince serious research and a keen sense of academia, then that is good. I hope this situation be addressed, for like the CXC parvenus, UG will turn out hordes of ‘well qualified manques.’
Marcell Ramos
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
Mar 28, 2024
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