It
is a pity that classes were disrupted for so
many days over salary negotiations. It is true
that WIGUT’s withholding of examination results
did not seem to have the intended impact on Government,
but once WIGUT had made their point by holding a
successful Red Day and the Minister of Tertiary Education
had indicated publicly that he was seeking to bring the
matter to resolution there was really no need to disrupt
the work of the University any further.
Yes,
it was carnival season, and some may have rationalized,
that a disruption at that time would do the least harm,
but the truth is that the entire 2004-2005 academic year
had already been thrown into commotion by the withholding
of examination results in December. The response of
students was instructive. Initially most felt that WIGUT
had a right to bring the matter to public attention but
as industrial action escalated students began to express
the view that they should not have to pay the price of
loss of classes because their teachers were engaged in a
salary dispute.
Still
the carnival spirit seems to have taken over in the
student domain as well, facilitated by the Guild,
as music, food and drinks became the focus of night
life on campus as if to send the message “if our lecturers
could play, who is we?”
And
so we come to the fundamental questions: What is
The University of the West Indies about? And what
is going to be its focus over the next decade?
There
can be little question that University faculty and
workers in the knowledge sector need to be well paid.
It is difficult to recruit top flight Faculty at UWI
precisely because salaries at The University of the
West Indies are in no way comparable to the salaries
of colleagues in counterpart universities or in industry.
It is not possible to have a world-class University if
the University is unable to pay for world-class faculty.
More and more the value of The University of the West Indies
will depend on two critical areas: first of all, the quality,
relevance, value and applicability of research output and
secondly, the quality of our graduates in providing leadership,
direction, critical thought, innovation and creative solutions
in whatever spheres of endeavour they position themselves to
play a role.
It is therefore important for the Government of Trinidad and
Tobago and the Ministry of Science, Technology and
Tertiary Education in particular to clarify how
the various elements of the Tertiary sector fit
together. The University of the West Indies, the
University of Trinidad and Tobago, the Trinidad and
Tobago Institute of Technology, the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts, Cipriani Labour College,
all funded by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago,
cannot all cater to the same market, nor will they
attract the same quality of students, nor will they
produce the same quality of graduates nor will they
generate research of the same value and significance.
While
some competition between state institutions is
inevitable, competition is already a fact of life
from the expanding local private sector especially
in fields such as IT and business and from a range
of international players in medicine, nursing, education and even in liberal arts programmes across the region.
The
issue, therefore, is less competition than segmentation
and rationalization. Ideally, supply and demand should
be allowed to determine the cost of teachers in the
various segments of the sector. There is no question
that a hierarchy of institutions involved in higher
education will evolve. Anyone who believes that all
institutions will be equal is fundamentally misguided.
They may all have value but will never be equal: not
in perception, not in reality.
Members
of the learning community that is UWI need to make
up their minds about what The University of the
West Indies is about and what is going to be our
focus over the next decade? Then, we need to commit
to do what is required to create the institution we
so intensely desire.
At
the end of the day, salaries in the Higher Education
sector will not be about negotiations. It will be
about the quality of the institution that we work
in; the quality of the institution we build. The
quality of institution will be determined by the
level of confidence students and parents have in
UWI; the value which the market places on our graduates;
the impact of our research and expertise on industry
and government; the quality of our teaching and research
as judged by our customers and our peers; and the
quality of relationship which we develop with our key
stakeholders including taxpayers who ultimately pay our salaries.
Let
us be farsighted therefore, and focus on what the real
challenges are. And let us urgently do what has to be
done as a learning community. St. Augustine must seize
the opportunity to lead in thought as well as performance;
because if we do not lead in these things our value and
worth will always be in dispute.
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