The entrance to the University of Technology (UTech) in Papine, St Andrew. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

THE University of Technology (UTech) will tomorrow cut 81 jobs in a move it said was designed to improve efficiency and keep the institution in step with international standards.

According to Hector Wheeler, the university's corporate communications manager, the 81 workers include secretaries, office assistants and clerks. However, he emphasised that 30 of them will be immediately re-hired on contract.

"Thirty persons will be given jobs for two to six months," Wheeler told the Observer. "Of the 81 persons who will be made redundant, 57 were temporary workers. Their appointments were not made because the revision process is ongoing."

The staff cuts come on the heels of a revision exercise undertaken by chartered accountants, KPMG.

"The revision is not new," Wheeler stressed. "It is a general make-over. We have looked at senior management and laboratory technicians. We have also developed faculties in place of our former departments. The physical facilities have also been improved. We are now looking at the administrative staff. We have to look at how best we can function as a world class university."

Wheeler said that administrative staff were not the only group of workers to come under the microscope in recent times as lecturers had also been singled out under the revision exercise.

According to Wheeler, the role and qualifications of lecturers were reviewed and a rule stipulating that lecturers possess a masters degree in the discipline they teach was implemented.

In fact, he said all of the workers who would have been affected by the lay-offs were last year interviewed at length in an attempt to identify the most efficient among them.

"Every single staff member was interviewed at length and given the chance to sell themselves," said Wheeler.

UTech (formerly the College of Arts, Science and Technology) currently offers courses in the faculties of education and liberal studies; business and management; engineering and computing; health and applied science and the built environment.

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