RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Sev­er­al law stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus feel they have been slight­ed by the uni­ver­si­ty as they failed to meet Sun­day’s dead­line for en­rol­ment in­to the Hugh Wood­ing Law School.

The blame is be­ing laid sole­ly on the uni­ver­si­ty as the stu­dents claimed that they weren’t giv­en their re­spec­tive cer­tifi­cates and tran­scripts on time, adding to which the stu­dents said UWI’s ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fice was closed for the en­tire of last week.

One dis­grun­tled par­ent said her daugh­ter is very frus­trat­ed and an­gry that she missed the dead­line and added that her daugh­ter’s frus­tra­tion is caus­ing both her and her daugh­ter an un­due amount of stress.

“This is very stress­ful hav­ing to see my child go through this. She did three years at the Law Fac­ul­ty at UWI and just to get her cer­tifi­cate and tran­script to move on to this last step she can’t and it’s no fault of hers,” said the par­ent, who wished not to re­veal her iden­ti­ty for fear that her daugh­ter may be vic­timised for bring­ing the is­sue in­to the pub­lic do­main.

“To date there has been no feed­back from UWI on this is­sue. Noth­ing. No rea­son why the of­fice was closed. No rea­son why the cer­tifi­cates and tran­scripts were de­layed and if any arrange­ment would be made for the few stu­dents who are af­fect­ed to be able to still get through at Hugh Wood­ing al­though the dead­line has now passed. It was Sun­day Ju­ly 31. We are be­ing told that Hugh Wood­ing is aware but no oth­er feed­back or hope is be­ing giv­en,” the par­ent added.

The par­ent said her daugh­ter is very an­gry at UWI’s ad­min­is­tra­tion for not keep­ing to re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and is hold­ing them re­spon­si­ble for the “to­tal up­set.”

“Hugh Wood­ing is not even tak­ing the stu­dents in with­out their tran­scripts and cer­tifi­cates which we got to know that it’s an un­der­stand­ing and it’s al­ways the case in the past so we re­al­ly don’t know why,” the par­ent added.

Pres­i­dent of UWI’s Stu­dents Guild, Kobe Nathan Sandy when con­tact­ed told Guardian Me­dia a tran­script is what is need­ed.

“A tran­script is what is need­ed for Hugh Wood­ing and UWI will send the tran­script di­rect­ly to Hugh Wood­ing. That is the of­fi­cial tran­script and that is the re­quire­ment but it doesn’t stop a stu­dent from ap­ply­ing or miss­ing the dead­line be­cause it’s un­der­stood that when UWI com­pletes this process and sends off to Hugh Wood­ing then of course that is an un­der­stand­ing they have.”

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly when con­tact­ed on the is­sue said she was not aware of the sit­u­a­tion. “I am not aware of this... I can make some en­quiries though. Not sure what it will yield,” the min­is­ter said.

Ques­tions were sent both to the Hugh Wood­ing Law School and UWI, how­ev­er, up to late Tues­day Guardian Me­dia was yet to re­ceive their re­spec­tive re­spons­es and if there was any res­o­lu­tion or hope for the law stu­dents.

UWI Prin­ci­pal re­sponds

Pro­fes­sor Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, new Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor and Prin­ci­pal for the St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI) has spo­ken out on the is­sue in­volv­ing a group of Law stu­dents who are claim­ing that they missed the Ju­ly 31 dead­line for en­roll­ment in­to the Hugh Wood­ing Law School due to the uni­ver­si­ty's fail­ure to give them their re­spec­tive tran­scripts and cer­tifi­cates.

Belle An­toine dur­ing a sit-down in­ter­view with the Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as "a bit of fake news" as she be­lieves "some­body was mis­led."

Over the week­end Guardian Me­dia was con­tact­ed by sev­er­al af­fect­ed Law stu­dents and par­ents who ex­pressed that be­cause of the de­lay in get­ting their re­spec­tive tran­scripts and cer­tifi­cates and miss­ing the dead­line for that fi­nal leg of stud­ies at the Law School they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an un­due amount of stress and frus­tra­tion.

Belle An­toine, who of­fi­cial­ly as­sumed of­fice on Au­gust 1 suc­ceed­ing Pro­fes­sor Bri­an Copeland who pro­ceed­ed in­to re­tire­ment on Ju­ly 31, said that the dead­line for en­roll­ment in­to the Law School is on Au­gust 31. Belle An­toine was for­mer­ly the Dean at the Law School.

"It's a bit like fake news be­cause nei­ther the law school or us know what is that about be­cause we send our list and I was of course Dean of Law I know the run­nings as we saw we im­me­di­ate­ly we don't wait for tran­scripts or cer­tifi­cates so that's the first er­ror be­cause cer­tifi­cates come long af­ter grad­u­a­tion so we know that we have a re­la­tion­ship with the Hugh Wood­ing Law School and by June we would have sent our list what we call a pass list all our stu­dents once ex­ams have been com­plet­ed and that would be the bulk of stu­dents," Belle An­toine said.

She added that they have been praised in the past for their time­li­ness, "In fact we've been praised of­ten in the past by the Law School of be­ing the best fac­ul­ty in the terms of be­ing time­ly."

"And I would per­son­al­ly see to it but what hap­pens is that some stu­dents who fail ex­ams or who would have had med­icals they do what we call a sup­ple­men­tal dur­ing the Sum­mer and what we nor­mal­ly do is that we write to the Law School and we say hold on we have a few more to come and they know that too so that they would wait and in­ci­den­tal­ly the cut-off point is not Ju­ly 31 be­cause I did con­sult with the prin­ci­pal and she con­firmed the cut-off point is ac­tu­al­ly Au­gust 31," she added.

Belle An­toine in­sist­ed that there's a good re­la­tion­ship be­tween the UWI and the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, "We were be­wil­dered as to where this came from and even af­ter the cut-off point, I would of­ten, when I was dean, if I know there was one stu­dent or two stu­dents be­cause some­times stu­dents want re­marks and I would un­der­stand and it's their right to do that I would say to the prin­ci­pal be­cause we have a good re­la­tion­ship hold on we have two more and they would wait."

"So there re­al­ly is no is­sue. Hope­ful­ly, it is not mis­chief, I don't think so, but I think some­one was mis­led so there is no need for fear or any kind of angst at this time," Belle An­toine re­as­sured.

Guardian Me­dia was told on Wednes­day morn­ing that 47 Law stu­dents are cur­rent­ly af­fect­ed as they are yet to re­ceive ac­cep­tance in­to the law school due to, ac­cord­ing to them, the tran­scripts and cer­tifi­cates not be­ing giv­en to them.

One stu­dent's par­ent who wished not to be iden­ti­fied re­mained adamant that her daugh­ter and her are go­ing through un­due stress be­cause her daugh­ter is al­leged­ly be­ing told that she can­not be ac­cept­ed in­to Hugh Wood­ing un­til she gets her tran­script at least from the uni­ver­si­ty.

On Tues­day pres­i­dent of UWIs Stu­dents Guild, Kobe Nathan Sandy when con­tact­ed told the Guardian Me­dia a tran­script is what is need­ed, "A tran­script is what is need­ed for Hugh Wood­ing and UWI will send the tran­script di­rect­ly to Hugh Wood­ing. That is the of­fi­cial tran­script and that is the re­quire­ment but it doesn't stop a stu­dent from ap­ply­ing or miss­ing the dead­line be­cause it's un­der­stood that when UWI com­pletes this process and sends off to Hugh Wood­ing then, of course, that is an un­der­stand­ing they have."

Sandy added that the tran­scripts would not be giv­en to the stu­dents, "the stu­dents wouldn't re­ceive it. It is the in­sti­tu­tion that would re­ceive it from the UWI."

"What the stu­dents can do is to email their fac­ul­ty or ex­am­i­na­tions de­part­ment to en­quire if the tran­script was com­plet­ed and sent," he added.

Sandy ad­vised fur­ther that if the stu­dents are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing is­sues, "the Guild and the ex­am de­part­ment have a work­ing re­la­tion­ship and we would as­sist."

Ques­tions that were sent both to the Hugh Wood­ing Law School and UWI, on Tues­day were up to Wednes­day evening yet to be re­spond­ed to.