The recent move by the University of Guyana (UG) administration to increase students’ administrative fees while introducing several others is improper, President of the UG Student’ Society (UGSS) Norwell Hinds has said.
Last week, the country’s premier tertiary institution informed students via email that “approval was granted by the University’s Competent Authority for increases in administrative fees, effective March 01, 2018.”
It was only last year that the institution hiked tuition fees by a whopping 35 per cent – which would be paid incrementally.
But UG’s administration has sought to justify these new increases by stating that “apart from tuition and facilities fees there are other expenses associated with studying at the university.”
A total of 21 existing fees will be increased while seven new fees were introduced under this arrangement. The newly introduced fees range as high as $15,000, while existing ones saw increases as high as $19,250.
The University noted too that those fees were approved at a Special Meeting of the Finance and General Purposes Committee (F&GPC), on Thursday, June 1, 2017; and that they will not affect every student.
Further, it was stated that immediate past President of the UGSS, Ron Glasglow participated in the meeting that approved the new fees. Glasgow’s term ended in October when Hinds took over leadership of the UGSS.
The Statutes of the University does not specifically allow for the F&GPC to approve increases, except if the Council delegates it. Instead, what is stated is that the Academic Board is “to prepare estimates of expenditure required to carry out the work of the University and to submit them to the Council for approval.”
But even though the University’s administration claims that the approval was granted by F&GPC, no piece of correspondence was seen by the current UGSS Executive which indicates that permission was granted to that committee to approve the fees.
The Statues also state that: “the Council may modify or revoke any decision of the said Committee but any act taken by the University as a result of the original decision of the Committee shall nevertheless be valid and binding on the University.”
However, the UGSS President said that while he is not disputing that approval was granted in 2017, it is “improper” to implement those fees in 2018.
“UGSS feels that imposition of fees in this financial year is improper without the installation of a Council and UGSS will take all actions necessary to raise its non-support for implementation these fees,” Hinds told News Room.
He reasoned that the 2017 Budget – of which the increases are part of – has a “finite life” which ended December 31, 2017. This means that the Budget year for 2017 would have expired, and any increase in fees which were not implemented would have to be brought back to Council.
However, the life of the last Council expired last year and there is currently none in place to consider the increases. Therefore, the Student Society head believes that it is improper and ill-thought out to implement these fees given the existing circumstance.
He shared too that when his administration became aware of the issue in January, they wrote to UG’s administration requesting confirmation that increases were impending.
After given confirmation, the UGSS head said that the Society wrote the University’s administration on January 16 expressing “non-support” and explaining the basis on which they did so – which was that it was improper and should have been done in the same fiscal year.
In its statement to the press on Sunday, the University failed to mention that it had been written to by the current UGSS who expressed non-support.
Instead, it stated that the new rates were to take effect from January 1, 2018, but they were deferred after formal and extensive engagements with the current UGSS Executive “in a spirit of genuine and transparent collaboration.”
The statement highlighted too that: “at no point did the Vice-Chancellor, the Registrar or any other senior official act unilaterally in instituting the revised fees.”
