UG admission criteria could be revisited – Vice Chancellor Dr Griffith

There could be some radical changes to the admission requirements to the University of Guyana (UG), if consultations with stakeholders see it necessary, newly appointed Vice Chancellor (VC) Dr Ivelaw Griffith has said.
Considering the much needed work to be done to put the country’s tertiary institution back on the pedestal, Griffith said that a review of the admission requirements must be changed.

The VC, who only took up the post on June 14 last, on Friday related how important it was for UG to get on par with international institutions, and said that decisions must now be made to see this realised. His concern in this regard was on the quality of the new admissions.
The professor told journalists on Friday that “part of the context of the local admission is part of what reels from the high schools. Irrespective of what you think of the last two decades of this nation, the reality is, primary and secondary education have lost quality and so what the university has been taking in, is a low quality.”
He further noted that trying to manage that lowered quality can in effect sometimes compromise the integrity of the lecturers, “because they now feel obligated to manage what they are taking in.”
He said a much detailed conversation is needed with stakeholders, to try and figure out what might be causing the difficulty.
“Some of the things we might consider doing is to revisit the admission requirements. But we have to balance the access with the expertise. So the process is still a conversation… Criteria are also a part of the conversation. Who we take in, is as important part as how we take them in,” said the professor.
Griffith said he is uncomfortable with two dimensions of admission – the dimension of process, and the dimension of criteria. He related that he will within the course of the year, be working with the relevant colleagues on campus to also revisit that.
“We have to be a little more nimble if we want to be a model university in relation to how students view the process and procedure for them to come on board. In doing that we have also have to ask ourselves, is the university like UG only operating to serve people within Guyana? The answer should be no”, the new VC said, noting that there must be a process that could reach out and recruit persons from outside Guyana.
“Whoever is going to be recruited from outside Guyana is not going to come and make a trip and do all the things that local students do only to be told yes or no. So we have to modernise our process with a view to local students and enhance a share of student body that is international.”
He said having international students are critical for two reasons: It allows for a different “price point for tuition”. It also allows to serve the region and beyond.
Dr Griffith noted that “we also have to make a hassle free process for students locally and internationally”.