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by Ralph Jemmott
Section 2.6 of the Chancellor’s Report on the University of the West Indies deals with the institution’s financial sustainability. It makes the certifiably valid statement that the current model of governance is ‘not sustainable.’
The model is one where the economic costs of teaching are shared by the students who pay 20 percent and the regional government pay some 80 per cent.
Barbados’ approach toward the funding of the University of the West Indies has always reflected the duopoly of BLP vs DLP partisan politics. Both parties were eager to demonstrate their economic support for ‘free’ university education.
This was so even when it was clear that even in good times the costs of so doing were hardly affordable. However neither the BLP nor the DLP wanted to appear to be withdrawing finance for free university schooling for fear that the opposition would make political capital by claiming that government was trying stop the poor black man’s child from receiving a university education.
It was good politics. As Lenny St. Hill wrote in 2014 Government would provide welfare ‘from conception to resurrection, including free university education which in the present circumstances the government cannot afford.’
Barbados has always spent an appreciable amount of its revenues on education and at one time it could boast of giving ‘free’ schooling from nursery to PhD. levels.
Successive governments continued to privilege university schooling, often at the expense of other sectors of the educational system, including primary and technical and vocational studies.
With Government support the Cave Hill Campus, in terms of its infrastructure, expanded impressively and surprisingly rapidly. In that regard, there can be no doubt that the leadership on that campus has brought great value to the University.
On the other hand critics within and without the University, wonder how much of what Lenny St. Hill called ‘empire building’ represents real idealism or reflects manic obsession, solipsistic dream or grand delusion.
For example, why at a time when the University was already experiencing financial difficulties, was it seeking to acquire the Mutual Building on Broad Street for an ‘urban campus?’ Did Cave Hill really need a Medical Faculty?
Given what the historian Shirley Gordon called ‘the claims of economy’ was it necessary to open Cricket and Culture faculties, reportedly with a mere ten students between them? As Barrack Obama once said, if one ignores reality, then reality had a way of catching up with you.
Post-colonial elites in the Caribbean have an affinity for impressive physical structures that catch the eye. However they often appear less concerned with the real substantive issues that reflect qualitative outcomes.
Universities worldwide were playing the numbers game. Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that 50 percent of British school leavers should go to university.
The Daily Telegraph writer David Young wrote: ‘To achieve this target, standards were relaxed and the polytechnics and some colleges were transformed from excellent institutions into second rate or worst universities.’
In the Caribbean it was also held that more students had be enrolled in university and a foolish fiction suggested that Barbados should have ‘a graduate in every household.’
An appropriate question was; for what purpose and to what end? Matriculation standards were lowered and enrolment increased at tax-payers expense as students pursued courses some of which did not enhance their employability in later life.
A Canadian visitor when told that Barbadians could receive an education from primary to post-graduate level relatively free of direct cost asked the question. How on earth is that possible? Apparently it was until now. In 2018 Barbados for the first time defaulted on its debt.
The unsustainability of the model has been evident for some time, but the present environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has fully exposed the financial vulnerability of the University and of the regional states that fund it.
The choice as any domestic housekeeper will attest, is to either reduce operating costs and or increase revenues. We were led to believe that the revenue would be available, but the out-going Cave Hill Principal has admitted that financially, the University is now operating ‘on bare bones.’
The Report identifies seven ‘specific governance gaps’ that have contributed to the financial insolvency of the university. All of these listed A to G reflect less than favourably on the competent financial management of the regional institution.
On the day that aspects of the Report first broke, Starcom moderator David Ellis suggested that it was ironic that an institution with the responsibility for teaching Business and Management could be the object of such a scathing indictment. The critique as outlined in the document speaks to:
A. The inability under the existing governance structure to effectively oversee and ensure accountability for execution of a sustainable strategic plan.
B. Delay in responding to the deteriorating financial metrics.
C. Inadequate supervision of Campus Bursars.
D. Lack of clarity and transparency in the processes.
E. Weakness in the review of strategic interaction prior to implementation.
F. Gaps in the review process for commercial projects and gaps in the process for inspecting, monitoring and reporting of these arrangements.
G. Lack of adherence to documented processes and non-compliance with rules governing private consulting arrangements by the UWI staff.
The question has to be asked. If the charges laid in the Report are of any validity, why did no one appear to notice and seek to address the deficiencies?
An objective critic cannot escape the number of so-called ‘gaps’ in the governance process relating to transparency, accountability, lack of clarity, implementation deficit, monitoring and reporting.
The question is how long have these ‘weaknesses’ gone unchecked and why? It speaks to a culture that is apparently pervasive within administrative circles in the region.
It is a culture that ignores obvious signs of a looming crisis, that puts a bandage on every sore and tries to rhetorically convince the publics that all is well.
It is a culture that is often overly hostile to criticism and seeks to enforce compliance on persons in subordinate positions. It is a culture that spells disaster.
The Report may also speak to some degree of incompetence on the part of persons in superordinate positions and an absence of profiles in courage on the part of some in subordinate categories.
If certain values are entrenched in the culture, then no amount of recommendation will suffice. Who will monitor the monitors? There is talk in this report as elsewhere of the absence of a whistle-blowing policy.
Talk of whistle-blowing in small regional states goes beyond the farcical. If persons are reluctant even to offer a contrary opinion to the prevailing myths. Who would dare to blow even a penny-whistle within the corridors of power?
The post-colonial Caribbean is littered with rhetoricians, persons who in the words of one critics use language primarily for its clang effect, self-serving ideologues who think that fantasy is more important that fact.
The Report signed by nine eminent Caribbean persons are full of ‘recommendations’ some of which have been suggested before.
Words are fine, but the tools and perhaps more importantly, the will to do things differently are not always available or self-evident. Overwrought and obscure rhetoric cannot be a substitute for honest critical thought and practical and pragmatic solutions.
Interestingly the Report speaks to the state of the University as a whole, presumably including the now five landed campuses and the On-line distant learning Open Campus. It clearly does not speak to any particular site of malfeasance or of the incompetence of any particular individual.
The comprehensive nature of the critique would not suggest that the problems outlined are the fault of any single individual or groups of persons. The COVID-19 Pandemic has shown the Caribbean to be in a state of existential crisis, economic and otherwise.
It is a crisis that appears to be truly systemic. One gets the impression that the University in terms of infrastructural growth and programmatic widening has outgrown the region’s economic capacity to support it in the way that we might wish. The CARICOM leaders must sit down and adopt measures to save what is perhaps the region’s greatest surviving institution.
Ralph Jemmott is a respected retired educator.
