UB students sign petition to prevent hike in semester fees in January 2013
Hope Amadi
Hundreds of students of the University of Belize are facing a significant hike in semester fees starting in January 2013 when the government says it will stop paying subsidies to the school. But in these tough financial times, that’s a blow that many of them are unable to handle and so the Student Government President, Hope Amadi, is leading a petition to prevent the increase. The students are seeking to have the government of Belize, in particular the Ministry of Education’s decision reversed and allow the subsidies to continue. Amadi told News Five today that the petition has received vast support.
Hope Amadi, Student Government President, UB Belmopan Campus
“Due to the increase of fees that the students have to pay come January, we have taken it upon ourselves to make sure that we get students to support our movement that the government should not stop paying the subsidy that they are paying for our students and our students have responded to that petition by signing. We have about a thousand signatures that have been signed already.”
Delahnie Bain
“So what will be done now with the petition?”
Hope Amadi
“I hope we don’t have to go to other means of trying to resolve this issue but that the government will understand that the students don’t want to pay and take back the responsibility because that is what they owe to the students of this university.”
Delahnie Bain
“So has the petition been forwarded to the government?”
Hope Amadi
“Not, yet but we’ve made them know when we were on air we made mention of it, we showed the sample of it to the masses and right here also I’m making known to the government and everyone who is watching to understand that we have a petition signed by the students and this is an indication that they don’t want to pay extra come January 2013.”
Delahnie Bain
“So how many students would be affected by this?”
Hope Amadi
“So far, from the information I’ve gotten from the administration, we have about five hundred and fifty give or take, students that got admitted this semester that will start January. But I don’t have an appropriate number of students who finished their associates and are going for their bachelors or students who deferred their admission and are starting in January. All these students will be affected. So we have almost about I believe more than six hundred students, more than seven hundred students that will be affected by this increment.”
Instead of subsidies, why not a loan program? That’s more fair — students who want it could borrow to get an education and move up the ladder of success in life, then pay it back after they graduate and have decent jobs.
It’s a good lesson in life that there is no free lunch, and experience teaches that people who get something for free don’t value it as much as a person who paid for it themselves.
Mr. storm
Belize has a little over 350, 000 people we must keep education affordable we are not at the population size where our Government are spending an abundance in education, kindly pay attention to whats going on in the world, other countries are making education to their people affordable and minimal in cost, arent you a shame to know that Belize sit at the worse place with the percent of our population which has a university education 4%. We clearly understand there is no free lunch hence we should stop all the unnecessary concessions we are giving to many companies because of Political affiliation. When there is a substantial increase in wages and reduction in cost of living and the high inflation we are facing and there is economic prosperity then an increase will be acceptable.
In the Caribbean our Government contribute the least to tertiary education in the region, the University has not be properly subsidized properly hence we have this per longed problem, there needs to be a funding formula that is tied to inflation and increase enrollment of student at the University. The national University remember its not private tax payers money would be better spent on educating our nation rather that be use in unnecessary places. Where is the oil money and this is how they want to offshore drill when we cant even benefit from the present drilling they simply wants more money to put in their friends and families pockets….