Gov’t bailout feathers UWI’s nest
THE EDITOR, Sir: IT IS baffling that the University of the West Indies student body is celebrating the Government’s short-term solution of offering $300 million to final-year students being barred from sitting final exams. But I ask, while the proposed bailout is much needed and graciously welcome, can we expect the Government to bail out final-year students every academic year?
The UWI is developing a track record for demonstrating that money trumps student welfare at the institution. In fairness, I agree that students should pay what is owed. However, the point at which the administration demands this payment clearly shows that the institution is more concerned with dollars and cents than it is with student advancement and development.
DELAYS
The cost to final-year students who aren’t allowed to sit exams because of outstanding fees greatly exceeds the actual figure owed to the university. Many of these students already have huge loans accumulating interest, and a delay in completion of their degree means delaying the chance for students to earn money – at least at the rate of a person with a degree, it means delaying when they begin to repay their loans and having to pay even greater interest on these loans.
A common consideration among many finalyear students is to go on the travel-work programme and earn money to finish paying their tuition before graduation. The problem here is that the UWI has not taken this factor into consideration, and rather than withholding students’ transcripts or certificates, it chooses instead to act in a way that is detrimental to students.
The UWI’s solution to this problem is equivalent to wringing the hands of their impoverished students behind their backs while pressing them against a barbed-wire fence ensuring that they feel immense pain for even daring to owe the region’s premier learning institution.
So while the student body rejoices in this supposed win, the real winner is the UWI’s administration, which is now perched on a glorious throne, unconcerned about which students will benefit from the bailout, but resting assured that its bank accounts will definitely look healthier in the next couple weeks. AKEELA N. MARIN President, UWI Mona Debating and Public Speaking Society