UG says returned to face-to-face classes since 2021-2022 academic year; has systems to offer programmes, ensure quality control

Last Updated on Sunday, 21 January 2024, 21:51 by Denis Chabrol

The University of Guyana on Sunday said it has long resumed face-to-face classes but students have the option of continuing Online through the institution’s distance learning technological architecture, contrary to last week’s claims by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo.

Though UG did not refer to Mr Jagdeo’s utterances, the institution said it announced and started a phased return to face-to-face classes since 2021-2022 academic year for 65 percent of its students and by January 2024, “most of the students who chose to and those who must attend compulsory classes are back on the campuses across the country.”

UG explained that a large number of the 20 percent of Online only students are teachers who are required to teach during the day and study in the evenings by request of the Ministry of Education in 2022. “The university considers it a massive step in modernisation to be able to offer students flexible options where possible,” the largely publicly funded tertiary institution said. Among those who have requested Online classes are  teachers, medical personnel, members of the military and law enforcement who live and work in remote areas, those having to travel overseas for work and other reasons, students with severe disabilities, those who enrolled online during COVID and live overseas,  as well as foreign and international students, including Guyanese in the diaspora.

UG said that as a result of the COVID-19 period from April 2020 to June 2021, it was forced to build an expanded Online architecture to ensure its students were able to learn and graduate during the pandemic.

Two surveys, according to UG, had found that 75 percent of the student population prefer to or need to stay Online due to their jobs, locations, domestic situations and other personal reasons.

UG boasts that it has built one of the most “robust” and sophisticated arrays for online teaching, records management, assessment, and backend academic services.

Vice President Jagdeo said at last Thursday’s news conference that government has received information that UG had not resumed face-to-face classes since the COVID period. “There have been concerns expressed to us that recently, since COVID the university has not gone back to even classes and they are online all the time,” he said. Referring to an unverified claim by an unnamed person who said that since the start of his/her academic programme, he/she had not gone to the Campus once, Mr Jagdeo said that was not the expectation of a physical facility. “That’s not the experience we want with a Campus because you’re still sustaining this whole campus here so a lot has to be reviewed there to,” he said.

But UG said in its updated Frequently Asked Questions that it has opted to retain its optimised Online architecture as a matter of national and strategic security  so that people can be trained uninterrupted, in case of any emergencies. “Additionally, it could be considered important for the State’s university to maintain the ability to continue its online operations as well as perfect them for maximum national security and mobility in uncertain times caused by national security matters, natural disasters such as floods and predicted’ pandemics,” UG added.

Mr Jagdeo said he personally believed that UG needed to “consolidate around a number of programmes that are high quality” rather than start new programmes with a small number of students as part of overall efforts to produce degrees that are of a standard that is recognised in other parts of the world. With government preparing to reintroduce free university education for the first time since 1994 and so fund the entire operations of that institution, Mr Jagdeo said now that government would have to ensure “we have solid leadership” and value for money.

UG, however, says it takes a strategic stakeholder-based approach to the creation and addition of new programmes. “As the largest and only National University in Guyana, UG receives and integrates written requests of the state, the private and public sectors along with industry research, its own surveys of students and prospective students and employers. UG also considers the advice of Faculty advisory boards, international and regional strategy documents and policies.

Additionally, as part of a respected global academic network, UG says it monitors very carefully how its offerings align with future trends and predictions of tertiary education, work and global labor force considerations. In terms of quality, the institution says “most importantly for its international accreditation and quality control purposes, The University must submit itself to systematic and periodic reviews of programmes and curriculum.”