SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

For­mer ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Fazal Karim is warn­ing of im­mi­nent job loss­es at the be­lea­guered Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT).

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day in re­sponse to a front-page T&T Guardian ex­clu­sive head­lined “UTT clos­es 4 cam­pus­es,” which de­tailed plans by the in­sti­tu­tion to close cam­pus­es in Val­sayn, Ch­agua­nas, Ari­ma and Corinth by year’s end.

UTT chair­man Prof Clement Im­bert ad­mit­ted the im­pend­ing clo­sures was a cost-cut­ting mea­sure as the uni­ver­si­ty bat­tles with a $57 mil­lion cash deficit.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Karim ad­vised against the move.

“UTT is our na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ty and this Gov­ern­ment is sin­gle-hand­ed­ly de­stroy­ing it. Since 2015, close to 500 em­ploy­ees of the uni­ver­si­ty have lost their jobs and this lat­est con­sol­i­da­tion at UTT will see more fac­ul­ty and staff be­ing placed on the bread­line,” he said.

Karim al­so called on UTT’s board of gov­er­nors “to do the ho­n­ourable thing and re­sign.” He said this lat­est de­ba­cle, added to re­cent cuts in the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (GATE) pro­gramme and Na­tion­al Schol­ar­ships Pro­gramme, would bring more hard­ships to the so­ci­ety.

“It amounts to the de­struc­tion of ac­cess to ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion by cit­i­zens and a dis­man­tling of the high­er ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem,” he said.

In the last five years, Karim said UTT had al­so not been able to point to any achieve­ments.

“The fac­ul­ty and staff con­tin­ue to pay the price of the mis­man­age­ment and in­com­pe­tence of the Gov­ern­ment. My heart pains for the em­ploy­ees, stu­dents and fam­i­lies of UTT,” Karim said.

Fazal Karim

“Af­ter every PNM bud­get is read, UTT en­ters in­to a vi­cious cy­cle of cri­sis and job cuts. This ad­min­is­tra­tion has re­gressed UTT to ground ze­ro and has cre­at­ed a tox­ic at­mos­phere of fear, frus­tra­tion and fi­nan­cial woes.”

Un­der his tenure, Karim said they ex­pand­ed ac­cess at the uni­ver­si­ty to dri­ve na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“What is al­so of in­ter­est is that two of the cam­pus­es be­ing closed are his­tor­i­cal­ly known as Teacher Train­ing Cen­tres. There is a con­cert­ed at­tack on the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem by this ad­min­is­tra­tion and the fu­ture of our chil­dren is un­der threat.”

He said al­most $2 bil­lion of tax­pay­ers’ funds were mind­less­ly poured in­to the Tamana Cam­pus which re­mains an in­com­plete and wast­ed as­set, not to men­tion a fi­nan­cial drain on UTT.

In ad­di­tion to the clo­sures, Karim said many of UTT’s pro­grammes have al­so been dis­con­tin­ued.

“The Gov­ern­ment must clear the air on whether stu­dents at the cer­tifi­cate and diplo­ma lev­els hav­ing re­ceived GATE are el­i­gi­ble to ac­cess GATE at the as­so­ciate and bach­e­lor’s de­gree lev­els. If the cam­pus clo­sures and job loss­es at UTT con­tin­ue, the uni­ver­si­ty will have no choice but to shut its doors next.”

Karim al­so won­dered if Gov­ern­ment’s ul­ti­mate plan is to close down UTT.

“Will there be a fire sale of UTT’s Ago­ra cam­pus in Ch­agua­nas? Are any friends and fam­i­ly wait­ing to bid for the prop­er­ty? What will be the fu­ture of teacher train­ing with the clo­sure of Val­sayn and Corinth? The Gov­ern­ment must tell the coun­try if it plans to tram­ple on the lega­cy of the late Patrick Man­ning.”