U.B.F.S.U. Outlines Issues at the University

Pio Saqui

So, there you heard from the position of the Board of Trustees at the University of Belize.  As we reported on Monday, the U.B.F.S.U.’s members were not engaging in formal because they were not prepared for the online transition as a result of the workload and unreliable technology for online teaching. But the reason given for the increase in workload is that the Board expects a decrease in the number of students for this semester.

Dr. Pio Saqui, President, U.B.F.S.U.

“I looked at the number of students that has been proposed for me to teach, added all together I have about two hundred and forty students that I’ll be teaching all together and registration is not yet over and there’s add drop period for two weeks so these numbers can change very quickly. What I can tell you is that there has never been a semester where I have taught a class that did not have at least twenty students in it and I teach one of the general core courses. In my professional course it’s whatever we admit that cohort will go up to all the other semesters and usually that number depends on what the intake was or whatever transfer we get. Currently from what I’m looking at the numbers they are much higher actually as per my courses they have been much higher than they have been in previous semesters.”

Timothy Dami

Timothy Dami, Faculty Member, UB, Punta Gorda Campus

“We can tell you that right now, as of yesterday, the enrollment for the university versus last semester by number of students last semester by number of students was down around three percent right so basically there are about four thousand six hundred students attending the university this semester. So this projection that the president came with twenty-five percent we’re not sure where he got it from, he alluded it to because of the fact that he’s still in Trinidad that he had met with colleagues from around the world and different people in the university or tertiary management system but the thing is that with the University of Belize is the primary and the only national university here and it offers the most financially sound investment for student when it comes to price so typically we won’t take the hit that others have. The number of enrollments is actually about twenty-one thousand which means that that is up to six point one percent and that equates to real money because each one of those enrollments refers to a credit and each credit has a price so therefore the finances of the university is about flat from last semester to this semester based on what we’re seeing.”