THE University of the West Indies yesterday offered students of its Mona campus, who may still be hard-up for cash, options that they can employ to ease their financial burden.

These options include moving from full-time to part-time status on the campus, which would only cause students to enjoy lower fees, but allowing them to pay only for the courses and credits for which they register.

“Part-time students have the option of reducing the number of courses for which they are registered, reducing the number of credits for which they have to pay,” the campus’ principal, Professor Kenneth Hall, told reporters.

The concession by the university’s administrators followed a second day of unrest on the campus that forced the suspension of lectures yesterday. Students padlocked gates and the police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators who sought to prevent entry onto the premises.

“… The police came here, gave us a minute to move and fired 18 cans, approximately, of tear gas,” complained Damion Crawford, the president of the Guild of Students, which has been protesting the campus’ move to de-register students who had not met past deadlines to pay their fees.

“It is simply another case of police brutality and the students have to talk against that,” Crawford said.

Some students had to receive medical treatment.

Education Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson expressed “deep regret” at the events that unfolded at the university yesterday, while the campus administration underlined the fact that they had not called the police.

“The UWI. wishes to express regret at the incident and its concern for those students who were affected…” a campus statement said. “The university wishes to make it clear that the police intervention was not at its request.”

The youth arms of the ruling People’s National Party and the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party in a rare show of unity, issued a joint statement expressing their concern over the state of negotiations and calling for a structured and constructive dialogue to settle the matter.

Jamaican students at the UWI contribute to approximately 20 per cent of their education, with taxpayers taking up the remaining 80 per cent. Tuition fees to students went up by 10 per cent this academic year.

Facing a 16.45 per cent cut in government subvention, the Mona campus, which in the past has been lax with late-paying students, sought to stick to its September 3 deadline for fees to be made good.

However, it later said it would allow late financial registration until October 1, after which it would de-register students. But the university said that those who pay by October 15 would be reinstated.

Crawford and the Guild rejected the UWI’s position, insisting that most students could not afford to pay and should not be penalised for the inability. He branded the UWI’s decision as elitist and against the children of the poor.

The UWI’s position was that students who complained of inability to pay had seemingly failed to fully explore available options for financing. For instance, while more than 4,000 students had not paid, only 2,409 students from all institutions in Jamaica, had applied to the Students Loan Bureau for loans.

In the days immediately after the deadline, the university de-registered 3,252 students – 2,840 or 76 per cent of them undergraduates.

The action seemed to have been having the desired effect. Up to yesterday about 900 of the students who were in arrears had paid.

“We had. just under 500 persons cleared financially between Friday and Monday and yesterday (Tuesday) evening we had received a total of over 400 new receipts from those who had paid since the weekend,” the Mona deputy principal Joseph Pereira told reporters yesterday.

However, on Tuesday the Guild organised demonstrations on the campus and fomented yesterday’s shut down.

Professor Hall announced at yesterday’s briefing that the administrators have agreed to a meeting Friday of the campus’ finance committee and Guild’s executive.

Hall also announced that those who were deregistered for debts of below $1,000 or for late fines would be reinstated. They will, however, still have to pay the debts.

In some cases, post-graduate students with departmental awards had been de-registered because of glitches in the system. Where heads of departments confirm these awards, the students will be reinstated.

The university also promised to establish a desk to assist students who may have paid but whose files had not been up-dated.

“The help desk will also provide information of possible sources of funding that are available for students , for example, the credit unions,” Professor Hall said.

In the meantime, Minister Henry-Wilson, faced with claims from some quarters that Jamaica should spend more of its $30-billion education budget on the early childhood, primary and secondary sectors rather than tertiary system, said she remained willing to continue to facilitate dialogue between the UWI and students “to determine the procedure for complying with the payment of school fees”.

The UWI will this fiscal year get 13.5 per cent of the government’s education budget and 48 per cent of what goes to the entire tertiary system.

The figures, in the face of a poorly performing lower echelons of the education system, have ignited calls for a re-balancing of the spend.