STUDENTS’ FUTURE ON HOLD

Lecturers at the St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies may be placing the future of current undergraduate students on hold, if not at risk, should the timing of their work-to-rule action in support of their demand for a 30 percent increase affect end of semester examinations. And while we are inclined to accept that if their argument is that all they seek is an upgrading of salaries to be in line with those paid lecturers at other UWI campuses, and that the authorities should examine, carefully, this approach, nonetheless students at the St Augustine Campus should not be used, however unintentionally, as pawns. It is clearly not enough for the lecturers’ union, the West Indies Group of University Teachers [WIGUT] to adopt the attitude in the current negotiations that theirs is the only constructive argument and that their demands must be acceded or their current work-to-rule action would continue.

Trade unions in Trinidad and Tobago, and indeed in other Caricom countries have a history of taking industrial action beyond that of a work-to-rule if their demands are not met fully or in the main. WIGUT should appreciate that the industrial action taken although it will ultimately affect the holder of the purse, that is the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, because of a possible delay in the students’ graduating and that of the skills of the majority being available for the continued development of this country, it is the students themselves who are in the immediate line of fire. And while Trinidad and Tobago students, who did not secure scholarships, are required to pay only half of their tuition fees, with the other half taken up by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, many of them (or their families) have had to seek student loans in order to fund their half of the fees.

In addition, there is the cost of books, board and lodge, transport and, in some cases, private tuition. The majority of students from most of the other Caricom States have to pay the full cost of their tuition fees, save for those on scholarships. Additional costs will also apply. There is an understandable desire, perhaps need is the more appropriate word, on their part to get through their university studies in the normal time frame. When they sit their examinations they are as anxious as their parents and/or guardians to access the results without undue delay, and stride on to the next stage. For scores, it will mean at the end of their Bachelor of Arts or Science degree courses an escape, a release from the culture of poverty which had bedevilled their parents and their parents before them. Scores will consider proceeding to study yet further, to seek to acquire  Masters Degrees or PhDs, as the baccalaureate no longer enjoys the currency of an earlier age.

Any delay in their programme could mean in addition to a delay in the discharge of their debts, where this is applicable, a delay in launching out into chosen careers. It is these people, along with their parents and/or guardians or dependents who will be hurt the most by prolonged industrial action on the part of WIGUT. It is not the administration of the University of the West Indies nor the Government of Trinidad and Tobago as, ironically, all too often it is the beneficiaries of services provided, whether they are patients at a hospital, whose doctors go on a work-to-rule or a sickout, or as in this case UWI St Augustine students, who are the innocent victims. But even as we state this we hold, nonetheless, that the authorities, provided that the argument of sought after parity by WIGUT is valid, should seek to understand the rationale behind the union’s demands. This would be both in the interest of the University in general and the students in particular.