-Is the Tuition-free pronouncing squeezing operations at state-run UL?
Before President George Weah delivered his 2nd State of the Nation address, University of Liberia (UL) students and others had raised concerns about the sustainability of the tuition waiver pronouncement for all public universities and colleges.
As expected, this was one of the successes heralded by the Liberian leader of his year-old CDC government.
In an effort to turn his public pronouncement into concrete policy, the President George Manneh Weah proposed last Monday: AN ACT TO RATIFY AND AUTHORIZE THE PAYMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT OF LIBERIA OF TUITION FEES FOR ALL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN ALL PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES IN LIBERIA.
In October of Last year (2018), President Weah announced the free tuition, less than a year after taking office on January 22, 2018.
The student population at the UL alone is up to 30,000, while there thousands others at many community colleges across Liberia as well as the William V.S. Tubman University in Harper, Maryland County. All this is coming as the CDC government experiences huge budget deficit.
Even in the absence of tuition waiver both the UL and other public colleges and the other public university in Maryland have been facing budgetary crunch, with numerous appeals being made for increase in their budgetary allocations.
This pronouncement came with mixed reactions, as others were excited given the current financial stress on students and parents due to the current state of the Liberian economy. Others said the pronouncement was not necessary because it is not Liberia’s priority and might not be sustained as the government is cash strapped.
Concerns they raised are: Will this tuition free pronouncement be sustained in the years to come and whether the government was living up to its promise on this free tuition pronouncement? What are the impacts this pronouncement has had on the University of Liberia in particular?
An official in the office of the UL Vice President for Administration, Mr. Ignatius D. Kunmeh said he was personally grateful to the government of Liberia for such an excellent move.
But Mr. Kunmeh, who is executive Assistant to the UL Vice President expressed the hope that this pronouncement will be sustained, even after this government, because he believes government is continuity.
He said change in any institution has both positive and negative impacts, but as it stands, the government is making significant strides in sustaining the pronouncement and hoped it continues to do that.
The UL had factored the limited tuition from students into its budget to take care of some operational cost.
Since the start of the current academic semester, it has been observed that basic instructional supplies including chalk have been lacking. But it was only last week that some supplies have been forthcoming.
When quizzed about reports of lack of instructional materials at the University of Liberia because of this pronouncement, Mr. Kunmeh said, his office is directly responsible to procure instructional materials and he is aware of the current situation, but said, the situation should not be attributed to the tuition free pronouncement.
At the beginning of every semester, an inventory of instructional materials needed at all colleges is taken and submitted to the Vice President of Administration’s office. The office then conducts a transparent and competitive bidding process, Mr. Kunmeh explained.
He said the winner of the bid supplies the University with instructional materials for that semester, whilst the administration makes payment. For this semester, the process started but was distorted because of the graduation and Christmas breaks that came almost the same time, but the process has started again and within two weeks, instructional materials should be made available, Mr. Kunmeh asserted.
From his University of Liberia Fendall campus office, Mr. Kunmeh also spoke to the issue of registration payment by students. He said information he gathered is that 75% of all the students have paid their registration fees.
He said the reason why students don’t receive alerts these days like before is because of the online registration. He said all alerts goes from the banks to the Business and Finance office and all students are admonished to visit said office for verification once they have registered. He called on students and instructors to be patient as his office is exerting all efforts to settle the instructional material issue.
But others at the state-run University see things differently regarding the tuition waiver pronouncement for public universities and colleges.
Mr. J. Boima Kiazolu, Chairman of the UL Chemistry Department said, while he welcomes the free tuition pronouncement because of the relief it has brought to struggling parents and students, it has the propensity to cause a decline in the current administration’s seven years goal of making the University one of the top twenty universities in Africa.
Since the pronouncement, Mr. Kiazolu noted that the UL administration was finding it difficult running the affairs of the University due to the lack of funds.
The head of the Chemistry Department said there are part time faculty members whose names are not on government’s payroll, but were been compensated by the University.
But since this pronouncement, they have not received any compensation.
Mr. Kiazolu also named lack of instructional materials as of the major challenges and he thinks there may be more coming.
According to him, he had to buy stationaries for his department to curtail the idea of instructors asking students for money to buy stationaries, in his mind, this is a form of corruption, because it is not the student’s responsibility.
When asked as to whether he had contacted the procurement office as to the instructional materials issue, but he said he heard his boss saying, the procurement process is ongoing.
“No matter the circumstances, we will still admonish the instructors in our department to do their best and we ask all other departments to do the same for the love of the students, their career, the University, and for the country,” Mr. Kiazolu asserted.
At the same time, some UL students have admitted that they have observed problem with supplies since the free tuition scheme took effect.
But a number of UL students have expressed gratitude to the Liberian leader for the free tuition and said these challenges has been age old problems, as they have not come because of tuition free school.
Others intimated that even if an instructor asks them to buy paper to print their exams, they will buy it since they want to do their test.
In fact, according to one female student, she wouldn’t mind paying one hundred Liberian Dollars per a test because she said, such amount cannot be compared to the fifteen thousand and more Liberian Dollars she would have paid for the semester.
Gewlay Nyon, a male student of the UL Business College, who came on the Fendall Campus to attend to a different matter, told a team of Reporters in a rather harsh tune that he one time got hurt on main campus while he and a colleagues were tussling over a chair during exams.
At that time they were paying school fees, but there were no chairs.
“We were paying school fees, there were riots here and there for toilets. Let these people give us a peace of mind, we have had enough already,” student Nyon added. Catherine S. Nyenpan, Grace Wisner and Amma J. Jeff contributed to this report. This is the second in a series of campus-based stories by students of the Mass Communication Department at the University of Liberia (UL) to be featured on this platform over the next week