U.B. students, administration tangle over fees, property
For years student life at the University of Belize was marked by what can only be called extreme apathy … but as the nation’s flagship institution of higher learning spreads its academic wings, so too are its students and faculty flexing their organisational muscles. Today those currents converged … and as News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports education and intelligence are not necessarily synonymous.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Around eleven this morning, students of the University of Belize gathered outside the door of the Belmopan campus administration building?s conference room to demand the entry of their representatives into a meeting of the board.
Phillip Willoughby, U.B. Student
?We will not let up on Belize Technical College campus and we will not accept any fees increase nor tuition increase.?
Five security guards were summoned to bar the students? entry but eventually U.B. president Dr. Corinth Morter Lewis and Board Chair Dr. Louis Zabaneh allowed Phillip Willoughby and Durecia Castillo into the room to voice their concerns.
Those concerns centre around increases in annual fees and a multi- million dollar government project that would see the establishment of a Technical and Vocational Education and Training Programme on U.B.?s School of Engineering campus on Freetown Road.
Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Chairman, U.B. Board
?We want the project to go on because it?s a win-win situation. Our students will be able to access state of the art equipment. We will have our own facilities upgraded, our faculty upgraded and the country will benefit from students coming out of IT-Vet, which the private sector needs.?
But in a letter to the board dated on the 13th of November, President of U.B.?s Faculty and Staff Association, Cesar Ross demanded that the board repeal its decision to transfer the Freetown Road property to Belmopan. Board Vice Chair Jackie Willoughby says that reaction is grounded in misinformation.
Jackie Willoughby, Vice Chair, U.B. Board
?The property is going into the government?s hands. We are not looking to move students from anywhere; we are looking to protect them if anything. So perhaps the message that ought to be carried from this board for correctness and completeness is that it goes in to the government?s hands, the students will still remain and while the construction stage is going on we?re finalizing the issues of curriculum and how we will collaborate the two programmes together.?
Phillip Willoughby
?Why incur a large sum of debt of that magnitude, it simply will not work. We are not willing to have the government get this property, set up an ITVET that should be finalized by 2007 and then take that property to do what they want with it … no way.?
As for higher education costs, the board does concede that while there will be no increases this academic year, come August 2007, fees will rise from one hundred and seventy five dollars to four hundred and ten dollars.
Dr. Louis Zabaneh
?With the increase in salaries in the past three years as part as the overall salary adjustments that government promised to public servants and the university seven and a half million dollars will not cut it any more. We have to get additional funds and in addition to that because the seven and a half will just be dealing with operating cost we have a lot of capital needs. We need laboratories, we need computer labs and we need to fix building in Central Farm and Toledo, etc. So the fees are marked particularly for specific capital projects.?
Phillip Willoughby
?They will make the subventions available for next semester and what will happen after next semester, we will come back here and do this jingle again? No way. We need a long term solution to this problem.?
The board is proposing to establish a student loan program by May 2007 but Willoughby says the students aren?t biting.
Phillip Willoughby
?The D.F.C. was a viable institution for any person to go to get a loan for an education. It was this administration that destroyed the D.F.C. Now you going to reinvent the wheel to create a similar institution to facilitate us, no way man. They have destroyed and mismanaged countless quantities of monies.?
According to the board, comments like that have led them to believe the issues are being distorted by politics.
Marion McNab, C.E.O. Ministry of Education
?I think the other rep was very political in his approach because he brought in issues about the Government, the economic situation that the government is in and all that. We believe as a board this not the place to address those issues.?
Ava Diaz, Love FM
?Mr. Fonseca had said…?
Phillip Willoughby
?Ma?m I no wah hear nothing bout dah fellow, he liad and he wuthless and eh evil.?
Janelle Chanona, News Five
?Phillip, is this getting personal/is this getting political??
Phillip Willoughby
?No, no, of course not. Every time you hear the government takes a position the latter always happens. Are we blind to this or are we just naïve??
The board has planned to meet with the students in Belize City on Wednesday afternoon at U.B.?s campus in West Landivar.
Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
According to the U.B. board, as part of the Caribbean Development Bank’s funding requirements, all buildings must be constructed on government property.
