APPROXIMATELY 2,000 students of the University of Technology (UTech) could be barred from sitting their end-of-semester exams because of the non-payment of tuition fees.

The affected students were deregistered by the St Andrew-based university last Friday for the non-payment of their fees.

UTech’s corporate communications manager, Michelle Beckford, said the original deadline for the payment of the fees was October 13, which was extended to October 22 and again to Thursday, November 13.

“We had to close off registration at some point as some students have not made good on their payments, despite them having repeated opportunities to do so,” Beckford told the Observer yesterday. She said the university had to close registration to facilitate the issuing of exam cards for registered students to sit their exams over the next four weeks.

Beckford said it was not unique to have students excluded from the sitting of examinations because of the non-payment of tuition fees.

“Nowhere in the world do you have students sitting exams without being properly registered. This happens in North America where students who have not paid just have to register for the next semester,” Beckford added.

Commenting on the situation facing the UTech students, Opposition spokesman on education, Senator Basil Waite urged the university to continue to be flexible, and also urged students to speak with UTech’s administration immediately to resolve the situation.

“I have been told by persons at UTech that if students were to come to make arrangements to pay then they would be facilitated, so there is some level of flexibility,” Waite said.

However, a student of the university told the Observer on Monday that students were told by the administrative office that they could not take part payments so late in the semester.

Senator Waite said the students were feeling the effect of the ongoing recession and that some had an aversion to borrowing money from the Students’ Loan Bureau.

“I feel that some persons are tentative about borrowing money from the SLB so we need to encourage people that they need to borrow money to invest in tertiary education. Also, perhaps students are not meeting the SLB means test to qualify for loans, therefore, we need to look at how the means test is applied so that persons with higher income levels can qualify,” Waite said.

Meanwhile, the Observer was informed that deregistered students were being turned away from the library as they sought to prepare for their exams.

Efforts to get a comment from the Ministry of Education on the development were unsuccessful.

In August, UTech reported having a population of 13,000 students, 3,000 more than the previous year.

The university, which has its main campus at Papine, St Andrew, has been agitating for a campus in western Jamaica to meet its growing demand, and had sought the Government’s assistance in getting the use of the under-utilised Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium.

However, it was reported last week that UTech’s proposal for the facility had been rejected.