Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 05, 2014 News
– annual five per cent increase being mulled
Despite a hike in the tuition fee at the University of Guyana (UG), there has been no noticeable change in the
rate of admission.
At least this is according to Vice Chancellor of the tertiary institution, Professor Jacob Opadeyi, who disclosed that while the initial intention was to match the fee to the approved US$1,000, the recent hike still does not reflect this increase.
“We never got what we asked for,” said the Vice Chancellor as he disclosed that during recent consultations held with students regarding the intent to adjust the fees, a decision was made to raise the fee from $127,000 to $210,000.
While this increased fee is not the amount paid by students across the board, it is however, an amount that is being paid by most students in addition to a $50,000 Facilities Fee expected to be paid by all.
A statement issued by the Vice Chancellor earlier this year outlined that after a review of the university’s financial position, the Government made a decision in 1994 to make UG a self-financing or cost-recovery institution by implementing and pegging the tuition fee to the local equivalent of US$1,000 per year.
The equivalent local currency at that time was G$127,000. However, the tuition fee remained at this level despite the initial understanding to peg the fees and the depreciation of the Guyana dollar.
In 2012, the University’s Council reiterated the need for the institution’s administration to implement the adjustment of tuition fees to the current exchange rate but again, this was not done.
However, by the time Professor Opadeyi assumed the position of Vice Chancellor last year, moves were again being made to have the fee adjusted, which became a reality by the time students registered for the new academic year which commenced last month.
According to Professor Opadeyi, during an interview with media operatives on Friday last, one of the challenges that the University was faced with, but was perhaps not recognised then, was the impact of inflation and the fact that the relevant fees were required to keep the institution alive.
But in order to combat inflation, Professor Opadeyi disclosed that moves will be made to implement a five per cent increase annually from next year. This, he believes, will in fact allow persons to efficiently plan for their time at the university.
Meanwhile, in commenting on the need to halt some classes to ensure even greater efficiency at the University, Professor Opadeyi said that “I was surprised when we did an evaluation and we found two persons in one class…I asked how many started? They told me two…I said for five years? I said that that doesn’t make sense. We are a small university and no university can be everything to everybody.”
As such the Vice Chancellor said that the measure that is likely to be employed by the university is that of offering programmes that attract a negligible number of persons only every few years, rather than having an annual intake.
“So if this year we run Biology, next two years we run Physics…we can run programmes in circles,” Professor Opadeyi hypothesised as he pointed out that in order to make sure that everybody gets what they want, a policy was implemented whereby any class that has less than 10 persons will not be offered this year.
“I can tell you that that has helped us a lot in terms of saving cost.
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