Caricom Chairman, Dr Ralph Gonsalves is to write the University of the West Indies Council for Legal Education on the impasse over Guyanese law students being accepted at the Trinidad-based Hugh Wooding Law School.
The move comes days after the Council for Legal Education stated that it will not be guaranteeing any of the 25 places usually offered to Guyanese students at the end of the degree programme at the Turkeyen Campus of the University of Guyana (UG).
As part of an age-old agreement between the Council and UG, every year, 25 automatic places were reserved for UG students at its Hugh Wooding Law School. The Council, however, recently took the decision that UG’s 2014 batch would not be guaranteed places.
It was understood by this publication that the original agreement had initially expired in November 2012, but, at the request of the Government of Guyana, it was extended until 2013. Negotiations were scheduled to take place to facilitate the 2014 batch of students. However, this discussion never took place until the matter arose one week ago.
Review
Attorney General Anil Nandlall, who is attending the Caricom Heads meeting primarily to deal with this issue, said Dr Gonsalves would be writing to the Council requesting that the 25 students be admitted while a review is being swiftly undertaken of the provision of legal education in the region with regard to the increased need for legal services in the Caribbean.
Dr Gonsalves noted that a similar review was undertaken more than 40 years ago and things would have changed radically since then, hence provisions for legal education needed to be reviewed as early as possible for all to benefit.
Just before leaving for the summit, Nandlall stated that Government will spare no effort in resolving the issue. “Government considers this as a matter of priority because… it jeopardises the entire law programme at the university and it jeopardises the future of students….”
“Therefore, Government will spare no effort in ensuring that this impasse is revolved in a manner that is beneficial to our students at the university,” he said.
UG Vice Chancellor, Professor Jacob Opadeyi, said he was pleased that Government and Caricom have chosen to intervene in the matter, with the Chairman of Caricom writing to the Council. “Our students are not just Guyanese; we have students from outside of Guyana who come and study with us, so our interest here is to fight for the rights of our students so that they can become professionals. If we deny them the opportunity to have a professional education, we will not be able to move on as a country,” he added.
