00:00The window is closing in on government's opportunity to thwart a complete shutdown of the St Augustine
00:12campus of the Caribbean's premier tertiary institution, and there appears to be little
00:18the campus principal can do as employees, including lecturers, negotiate with government
00:23and not management.
00:25I guess you can say we are caught in the middle. I'm very concerned about my students, of course.
00:30And we will have to have some accommodations.
00:35No accommodation? Without a remit?
00:37Well, in terms of management, of course, I understand that you are lecturing, so thank you for that.
00:45We ask the students to attend their lectures.
00:48That can stop too, eh?
00:49Well, we know that.
00:50You want us to take that? No! We cannot take that!
00:54The semester begins with protest action as members of the West Indian Group of University Teachers
00:59are disgruntled with a 2% increase offered on their 2014 salaries.
01:05And they have not been given another remit since UWE's administration submitted a salary adjustment proposal
01:12to government in March of 2024.
01:15This is exultant, this is infuriating. We are waiting and we are waiting and we are getting nothing.
01:2311 years we are waiting and we are getting nothing.
01:27They are isolating us, they are isolating us.
01:31They are talking and they are talking and we are getting nothing.
01:35Principal Rosemarie Antwine says salaries at UWE St. Augustine are not just lower than
01:41other UWE campuses, but also local tertiary institutions.
01:46It cannot be that even tertiary institutions, which probably are our nearest comparators,
01:52which are lower than us in the rankings, which they don't even pretend to be otherwise,
01:58whether it be UTT or Arthur Love Jack, which I'm the chair of, by the way,
02:02they cannot be paid better salaries than we are. I mean, this is not real.
02:07The inequity, she says, is affecting the standard of the university,
02:11as meager wages are a deterrent for attracting the top brass in academia.
02:16People are leaving because there are greener pastures all over, whether it's Trinidad, whether it's regionally.
02:24We have not been able to attract a librarian. We've had three people turned down before.
02:29To make matters worse, the state owes the campus some $1.4 billion for tuition costs via the GATE program.
02:36And UWE's attempts to increase earnings through a 20% hike in tuition were stalled
02:42due to resistance from government and students.
02:45If you were to do a degree in engineering at the campus, it's about $15,000, believe it or not.
02:52And at UTT, which is a national institution, also publicly funded, it's over $120,000.
02:59So look at the comparisons. I don't know what else can be said or done.
03:04Certainly, there's nothing more that I can say that I have not said before or written.
03:09I think it is really a question of equity.
03:12In this first stage, over 20,000 grades have been withheld, thereby hindering this semester's registration process.
03:20Because this is a red revolution this week, next week is rest and reflection, which means you just stay in your office.
03:26No answering of emails, no conducting any work.
03:31Some can even not go to class if they choose, and February 3 is a complete blackout.
03:36So unless they communicate with you something reasonable, it's high time that we get something reasonable.
03:42While students and teachers wait to see if government makes a proposal and thereby foils the shutdown,
03:49administration has decided to extend registration and waive late fees.
03:55Rishi Tewari, Rub-n-Ryne, TV6 News.
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