Ok so I've been through UWI and have seen the metamorphosis in many areas. Maybe metamorphosis isn't the right word because it denotes a change from one form of a creature to another, and I believe that a baby monster will only grow up to be a larger version of itself.
Registration at UWI has always been an act of Sado-Masochism. As a student I must acknowledge my role in the rogering that I get because I have never told them to stop. The first time is always traumatic, but everyone knows someone who has been through the process and thus had the opportunity to be fore-warned. I gave up on any improvement and just accept whatever position I am asked to assume.
But my observation today is more on the evolution of the registration package. In days of yore, it was a bulky package that they refused to mail because it would cost too much money. So if you lived at a Kingston ## address or even St. Catherine or St. Thomas you were required to collect your package and those from fur-fur would be mailed theirs at the last minute (another tactic that made them bus it into town to collect it to save themselves at least some of the hassle). The package (circa 1993) contained rules and regulations for registration, examinations, a map of the campus, important notices for that new year, your grades if returning student, a faculty booklet and your voucher to pay your fees.
By 1995, you had to pay for the faculty handbook. Fees also began to rise and so you were not guaranteed that the voucher you received had the correct figure and you had the responsibility to ensure that you got another one printed, had the fees for your programme changed after initial voucher printing.
By 1999 they were moving towards a paperless structure and registration took place on-line such that you only needed the updates for the UWI policies and your voucher in your package. Results were on the notice board or on-line and you requested a print-out if you so desired.
I left the system by this point and returned in 2002 to find things on a different plane (heading for disaster). Course codes were in the process of being changed so that a central system could be used for all faculties. Lectures were given via power-point or other multi-media options. Copies posted on-line. Registration was done on-line and you only needed your voucher which had no figure on it and you were responsible for calculating your own damn fees. A booklet was prepared for just that eventuality and distributed. However, the same info was posted on-line (at least in part). Again, you were responsible for login-on the system to check for approval and if your fees were received and all the levels of registration necessary.
Circa 2005 the registration package has no names printed on the envelope, and contains a booklet informing you of your fees, a brochure and application form for some NCB product. The ppl employed to distribute the packages asked for my ID I claimed to not have mine though it sat quite snuggly in my wallet. I was trying to prove that I could collect my package without an ID with minimal hassle. She saw my name tag on my shirt and gave me the package. She insisted I sign for it so that the record showed that Hayden Hamil collected his registration package. "By the way sir, there is no payment voucher in there nor will there be any this year."
Basically, the packages were identical. The voucher made sense of the process which excluded persons collecting your package for you unless given sufficient permission, usually in the form of an authorisation letter. So what the hell was I signing for? Why didn't they just e-mail the info out to our accounts? Am I to travel from Mobay to collect an impersonal package that has nothing of use in there? So I signed for a package that I could swap without opening and be non-the-worse-for-wear. DAMNED FOOLISHNESS!!!!!!
What was worse, they had booklets on the table I could have just grabbed one and not bothered to collect the package and I'd be in the same situation. Would they really refuse my fees because I didn't sign that I collected my package? Not likely. So what's the purpose of the young ladies handing out the packages.... "So what about..... It's in the booklet sir. So where do I ..... It's in the booklet sir. And if I ..... I don't know sir you'd have to see what the booklet says."
My fees were raised by 7.4% in order to pay for the paper to print those booklets by the UWI printer, thus keeping those ppl in a job, and to hire those girls, and to make some middle manager feel that they have operationalised some papered/tendered moronic suggestion from on high. As an aside, they don't prepare handouts for us anymore, we are required to submit a CD so that notes may be copied over to it and we may print at our own expense.
$400,000/annum (20% of the economic cost of my education) and I must watch them waste it.
UWI the new NSWMA. Untouchable!!
6 comments:
#$%^&#@@!!!!!
I am just dreading when i go bak (If i go back there). Every year they seen to hit new Highs in sheer ******* stupidity, that i Worried that it will make no sense for me to do anything at that **** school.
just 3 more months
just 3 more months
just 3 more months
repeat it and smile Aleiya
blogger has censorship??
UWI has to be the worst tertiary institution on the planet. The kings of contradiction and mismanagement. The expensive lights that line the post office gate that serve no academic and little aesthetic purpose. The picket fence at main gate only erected to prevent students from using the convenient short cut across to the Chapel, and destroyed in one puff of Ivan breeze. The 'park' in front of Irvine that was apparently funded by the credit union in a time when the school was short on funds and was deregistering students- you'd like to think that that money could've been used for some better purpose.
And how does UWI attempt to make up for their shortfalls? By clamping unsuspecting motorists for putting even one Goodyear on their starvingly dry grass, or by cutting funding to classrooms and labs badly in need of a boost, all this while their asses sit high and mighty with their enormous cheques and overfed egos. I'm so glad to be out of that system.
The problem with UWI, I have always maintained, is that it sends out graduates but for the most part it doesn't hire any.
This is the only way I can explain the sheer incompetence and inefficiency that plagues ALL sectors of this forbidden place.
I tell ppl that UWI is 'behind the Devil's back' - even he doesn't want to wade through this filth.
Then they ask us to join their alumni and wonder why it's so dismal in numbers.
A long time ago UWI forgot why it's staff has jobs, why it was constructed, why it is running - the students.
Not for the lectures who fly out to take summer jobs at other schools and therefore have to make the semesters shorter with the same work load. Not for the admin to have fancy meetings in air-conditioned rooms where they make policies about us but don't include us. Not for the guild to practice Junior PNP/JLP politicking. Not for the security guards wo clamp ur vehicles, but try to check you if you ask them for assistance(if u can find one). Not for....raas, a upset now.
Lata.
Im really glad to be out of UWI and their screwed up administration. Theyre the main reason I almost didnt graduate, and at the very last minute had to do an extra course cause i was credits short and didnt realize. Anyway, I get the impression that this is a problem with most if not all tertiary education schools. As bad as UWI is, trust me on this, UTECH is worse. They dont even have the unnecessary pretty technology or the pretty looking but useless handbooks, no sugarcoating at all. I know Teachers College is really bad as well, the customer service reps dont give a damn. Sadly, the poor service in the education system seems to be a trend.
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