Government made a “wrong choice” in picking a fight with the students of the University of the West Indies (UWI).
That assertion was made earlier today by opposition MP Gline Clarke in a response to the decision to make university students pay tuition costs from 2014.
During his contribution to the debate on the 2013 Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals made by Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler last Tuesday, Clarke said Government chose to pick a fight rather than fix the problem.
Noting that the fight with students could not be won, Clarke said the fight was actually with the already stretched parents because students are “generally poor”.
He said the Government had to look at what it was doing with the UWI and it was an “unfortunate” choice to ask parents to pay for their children’s tuition.
Looking at the Student Revolving Loan, which Sinckler gave as an option to offset costs, Clarke, the MP for St George North, said he hoped the students would not have to go searching for a whole set of guarantors in order to secure a loan.
Charging that the Government looked to itself and the wrong people for advice, Clarke said the programmes proposed by Sinckler were not “conducive” to success and that all the measures brought by the Democratic Labour Party in the last five years had failed.
Clarke said that rather than asking the students’ parents to pay, Government could look at imposing a levy on all the members of the House who benefited from a free university education and all other UWI graduates.
Apparently ready to put his money where his mouth is, Clarke said that as a graduate himself he was willing to sanction any deduction from his salary for the suggested levy. (YB)