By Trudy Simpson, Staff ReporterTHE UNIVERSITY of the West Indies (UWI) on Thursday backtracked on an earlier decision to charge part-time students to do a remedial use of English course (UC010), following yesterday's protest by part-time students and a meeting with the Guild of Students.
This was confirmed by Junior Rose, Guild president, Joseph Perriera, Deputy principal and a UWO press release yesterday.
Students had protested the charges, which, they said, amounted to a hike of more than $30,000 in their school fees for the new academic term.
The removal of the costs means a "drastic reduction" part time students, already burdened with having to pay $5,087 per credit on average, Mr. Rose said.
He said part time students can do courses valued at a maximum of 23 credits per year but on average, they do 18 credits.
He said the University promised to refund those students who have already paid but this has not been confirmed.
In a statement, UWI explained that on the matter of the charges for the remedial course, UC010, some two years ago it had implemented a regional council decision that part-time students should pay per credit.
It said there was a change in the billing system to reflect this but the computerised system had not applied charges at that time for the remedial course because the course attracts no degree credits.
"This anomaly was identified and corrected and charges were applied to the remedial course for the 2003-2004 academic year."
The Administration acknowledged that the students had not been notified of this recent change in the billing system, and therefore agreed to rescind the fees applicable to this course for the current academic year 2003-2004," the University said in a press release.
Both sides said the University will also be looking at submitting a proposal to the regional UWI council recommending that there be a revised formula for calculating part time fees.
"What we are proposing would be in effect a reduction in part time fees," said Mr. Perriera. He said the posposal would be submitted for April 2004 and if agreed on, would take effect next September.
On a related matter, Mr. Rose said the Guild would be approaching Government to outline students' concern at Government's plans to reduce its subsidy to tertiary institutions. He said students want Government to continue to subsidise 80 per cent of fees.
