Not surprisingly, VP Jagdeo’s recent comments: about the need for UG to up its game in the delivery of the programmes that distinguish it as our sole tertiary educational institution, have raised the ire of the PNC. “Not surprisingly” because, ever since they converted what they snarkily referred to as “Jagan’s Night School” at Queen’s College to the mortar-and-brick facilities at Turkeyen, it’s been used almost exclusively to hand out sinecures to the PNC’s middle strata — outside of the old Civil Service. But the VP didn’t hone in on UG because of politics, but because of the product it’s supposed to deliver.
So, what is it exactly that Jagdeo said to’ve made the PNC’s knickers and bucktas get into such tight knots?? Firstly, he was responding to a question on the salary structure at the institution compared to the foreign institutions that are facilitating the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) scholarships sponsored by the Government. To date, the PPP have already exceeded the 20,000 scholarships they promised in their manifesto, and there are still two years to go.
And this is what he said: “[The University of Guyana] needs to have a good quality of degree [programmes], particularly first degrees, around a core number of areas, and quality is important…so a lot has to be reviewed there, too; and the Government, now that it will be using taxpayers’ resources to fund the entire university, needs to ensure that we have solid leadership, and also that we have value for money, and the output – the quality of the degree [programme] – is of a standard that is recognised everywhere in the world.”
Now, exactly what’s so objectionable about that?? The Opposition is concerned whether the country’s getting value for money spent on, say, infrastructure; and they’ve expressed this vehemently at the drop of a hat, and we can be sure they will do so throughout this budget debate. This is the duty of an opposition in a democracy – to keep the Government on the straight and narrow on spending. So, your Eyewitness wants to know: why don’t they have the same concern for the billions poured annually into UG?
But hold it!! Your Eyewitness already answered that question in his prefatory remarks, hasn’t he?? UG is a home away from home for the PNC intelligentsia; it provides them with wuk, and a platform to indoctrinate the young minds coming to be “schooled”!! So, Jagdeo has inadvertently hit a raw nerve in the PNC apparatus!! But it must be followed up. Apart from the PNC’s incestuous ties with UG, governments across the globe are relooking at “bricks and mortar” universities – especially after the enforced online learning experience occasioned by the COVID pandemic!!
Now that the subject’s been broached, let’s re-examine the entire premise of our delivery of “higher education”!! And grade UG!!
