Lack of internet may force Cave Hill students to quit semester

Dozens of University of the West Indies students unable to afford internet may be forced to withdraw from their classes following unsuccessful attempts by campus administration to secure free data for an array of online academic resources.

Cave Hill officials said they reached out to telecommunications giants FLOW and Digicel who have already offered similar services to thousands enrolled at the Mona Campus in Jamaica and the St Augustine Campus in Trinidad and Tobago.

So far, only Digicel Barbados has  expressed a willingness to facilitate the requests.

According to a senior officer at Cave Hill, officials were hoping that long-standing corporate relationships with the UWI would compel the companies to help during a time of need. But so far, no such assistance has been forthcoming.

A UWI official told Barbados TODAY: “Flow has been a partner for the last 20 years and we’ve been trying to get them to provide some form of concessionary services, preferably the same arrangement extended to the sister campuses in Trinidad and Jamaica. But we have been unsuccessful so far.

“Negotiations have not come to an end, but we were hoping to secure an arrangement before the end of class.”

While hundreds remain immune to the current challenges, the recent academic changes are particularly difficult for students in low-income households struggling to make ends meet.

The source added: “Because students have been unable to access the physical library, we have been seeking alternative ways for them to access the library resources but this would incur some charges. With that in mind we were hoping to ease the cost to students attempting to access the online materials instead of having to incur telecommunications charges.”

Cave Hill was forced to suspend face-to-face classes near the end of March amid Government-imposed directives implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19. This resulted in droves of regional and international students fleeing the country – some of whom are unable to access internet services in their home countries.

Campus-wide surveys conducted in late March revealed that nearly 400 of the school’s 6,000 students – six per cent – were unable to access internet services in time for the April 6 start of online classes. But officials were hoping the zero-rated internet access would present an array of online tools necessary to complete assignments and online exams.

When contacted about the challenges, Marilyn Sealy, FLOW’s senior manager for communications, could not comment on the development but promised to address it later in the day. Subsequent calls from Barbados TODAY went unanswered.

On Friday evening, Janelle Germain, the Digicel Group’s head of marketing, said the company only received the request from Cave Hill  that same day. She revealed that zero-rated services were already offered to the traditional ‘edu.bb’ domain.

Furthermore, Germain stressed that Digicel’s technical team was already determining how the company would accommodate UWI’s efforts at “continuing to provide its students with high-quality education during the current crisis”.

In the meantime, students at UWI St Augustine have been enjoying zero-rated services from Bmobile and Digicel since April 17. The service, which is expected to continue until July 10, allows students to use their broadband plan at home to access the specific zero-rated sites. Smartphone users must have a mobile data plan but are not being charged to access the-zero rated sites, including the activation of mobile hotspots.

Digicel Jamaica has also been offering 14-day “education plans” since April 3. This grants students up to the tertiary level zero-rated access to all listed educational sites and 500 megabytes of data for 14 days to access all other sites at a cost of $7.00 (JA $500).

But with few options left on the table for Cave Hill students, and barring an agreement with the telecoms, those who cannot access the necessary resources may be forced to withdraw, Barbados TODAY was told.

Fortunately, these students will not face the scrutiny usually associated with late withdrawal from the university, according to a notice released by the Guild of Students on Friday.

Students who submit their requests on or before April 30 will be allowed to re-register when the course(s) are offered. Students hoping to de-register from one or more courses will be allowed to do so before April 30 without incurring the usual penalties, the undergraduates’ guild said.

The university has also taken a liberal stance with the submission of research papers and theses and extensions will be granted on a course-by-course basis.

kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb