Port of Spain, Trinidad (Trinidad Express) — Students of The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine campus are expected to get their semester one results today, almost one month after the last examination ended.
The delay in the release of results came about because lecturers withheld grades to students because of arrears in salary owed to them by the UWI, the Student’s Guild said.
The Student’s Guild said a number of lecturers withheld results to students after a statement issued by the West Indies Group of University Teachers (WIGUT) told them to do so.
“At the WIGUT general meeting held on January 5, 2015, the meeting directed that all WIGUT members should refrain from entering marks for semester one 2014/2015 on banner until such time that WIGUT is advised by the campus principal and campus senior management of the date that payment of arrears in salaries will be effected,” the release issued by WIGUT stated.
On June 24 last year, the management of the UWI St Augustine and WIGUT agreed on the revised terms and conditions for the academic, senior administrative and professional staff of the campus.
“With effect from 1 August, 2011, these members of staff will benefit from a six per cent increase on basic salary, structured one per cent in 2011, one per cent in 2012 and four per cent in 2013, after adjustment, as well as inflation-based adjustments to transportation and book grant allowances,” a release from The UWI St Augustine stated then.
Semester one at The UWI ended on December 19.
Registration for semester two began on Monday, with classes scheduled to start next Monday.
The UWI introduced “special arrangements” for some courses with prerequisites as a means of getting around the situation with the delayed results.
Students received a memorandum from campus registrar Richard Saunders, informing them results will be released today.
“As you are aware, the Board for Undergraduate Studies agreed to introduce a revised grade point average (GPA) scheme for all undergraduate programmes at the University of the West Indies, and this change was implemented effective Semester one of the academic year 2014/2015,” the memorandum stated.
“The delay in release of grades was recommended by the Board for Undergraduate Studies so as to enable the Board of Examiners to thoroughly scrutinise all results since this is the first examination period for which the new GPA system will be applied,” the memorandum stated.
For the 2014/2015 academic year, the UWI changed its pass mark from 40 per cent to 50 per cent.
The GPA system was also changed as a result.