Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 15, 2017 News
Although the faction of the University of Guyana [UG] workers represented by the University of Guyana ‘ Union [UGWU] was recently cleared for an eight percent salary increase, those represented by the University of Guyana Senior Staff Association [UGSSA] are still awaiting a similar fate.
But based on information reaching this publication, the university’s administration is prepared for the long haul, and is not likely to agree to any salary increase until the UGSSA members adhere to stipulations that were introduced by Vice Chancellor Professor, Ivelaw Griffith.
According to reports, Vice Chancellor Griffith has made the non-submission of grades by lecturers a major hindrance to the inking of an agreement to allow the UGSSA-represented staffers to be granted a six percent increase.
“We are not even sure that we are going to get it in our December salary,” a union official told this publication.
In fact, the official told this publication, too, that the possibility of the matter reaching to conciliation is not unlikely. But according to the official, “We recognise that going to the Department of Labour would be the same thing if the Vice Chancellor continues to take the unyielding stance.”
But this publication was reliably informed that “some academics, whether deliberately or not, or who due to circumstances beyond their control, have been unable to honour their obligations of completing their courses on time, picking up their exams scripts and marking them and submitting grades, so that they can be uploaded into the [university’s] system.”
Tracking grades, or the lack thereof, is a particularly simple process at the university, since according to an official close to the operation of the university, “when the grades are submitted there is a Board of Examiners at every Faculty level that will ascertain that the grades are correct and that everything is okay before it gets to Exams [Division].”
Also, the University has in place a General Board of Exams at the Academic levels which, the official said, deals with all faculties, students and courses with a view of ascertaining how well they are doing.
According to the official, “somehow or the other, at the departmental level there continues to be a breakdown. It hasn’t been corrected at the faculty level, it hasn’t been corrected at the Academic Board level, so you have a chronic situation prevailing, and there are some staff themselves, some academics, who have given UG some problems in terms of resolving issues which would have been taken to the Council.”
Council, according to the official, can pronounce on these and determine the course of action the UG administration can take, but breakdowns in this regard have led to the current situation where there is a standoff.
“The Vice Chancellor is saying to the executive of the UGSSA get your members to hand in their scripts and their grades; if they don’t, then nobody gets paid,” the official noted.
“That is the situation, the innocent are paying for the guilty and so you have a bunch of disgruntled staff who believe that the situation could have been handled differently, but the Vice Chancellor is very adamant about what it is he wants to do, and it has to happen his way, no other way, although he is being properly advised,” this publication was told.
“He [the Vice Chancellor] is advised at the level of the Department of Labour, the Guyana Trades Union Congress, and he is still holding ground,” the official related.
This publication was reliably informed that since it was only the grades situation affecting the UGSSA members, a lenient UG administration could have inked an agreement with the UGSSA to ensure them a salary increase too. But according to the official, “It is just the obstinacy of the Vice Chancellor that has created this problem.”
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