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The University of Belize Faculty and Staff Union is calling out the government for not fulfilling its campaign promise to reinstate UB's subvention. Back in 2020, the UDP slashed the subvention by 24.2%, from $11 million to $8.34 million, which was expected to lead to a reduction of UB's programs and termination of staff. At the time, the PUP, who were in opposition, said that the decision was misguided and counterproductive. They also criticized the UDP for only increasing UB's subvention by $1 million over a decade, which they said undermined the university's capacity to grow.
The PUP then committed to restoring and increasing the subvention over the next five years, along with promises of increased resources, greater accountability, improved quality of education, and more.
Three and a half years into their term, UBFSU is now criticizing the government for their failure to follow through on these promises. According to the union's president, the university is struggling to meet its financial obligations and is unable to develop new and existing programs. He expressed his frustration to us via Zoom today.
Dr Pio Saqui, President, UBFSU
"We have been in operation at the University of Belize as what is regarding as back to normal where after a year salary cut has been restored, there's no movement towards getting any kind of restoration for the subvention that the government took during the COVID 19 and that was part of the reason, the reason was that this was for the government to her able to withstand the financial crisis that COVID 19 brought on. We're back here almost two years in the university system and our subvention is still not restores."
Timothy Dami, Faculty Rep, Board of Trustee, UB
"The previous government had increase it from 10 to 11 [million] in 2019. When COVID hit it was dropped to 8 million in 2020 and that was when the PUP when they were campaigning one of their platforms was reinstating it back to the original 11 million. In addition that committed in another interview during the campaign in August 12th, 2020, they committed to increasing it by 1 million dollars per annum until it hit 15 million so this did not happen so the thing is, the university needs money to operate. All the other monies that the government reduced, the salaries, the allowances, the increments, everything that had been reduced has now been restored to the best of my knowledge across the entire country. So why has not the subvention for UB been reinstated. Now the government will say that they've raised scholarships from I believe the number was 4 million to 13 million last year for students but those are not just for UB students, those were across all the institutions around the country and then remember that the scholarships go to the student to fund their education, that does not play the same role as a subvention, subvention is giving money to operate and the subvention currently right now is below 8 million, it's about 7.7 million and that barely gets UB through 7 months of operation just funding its payroll, which means that UB has to use its tuition and fees to be able to fund its daily operations and programs."
In a comment to the media, the Minister of Education said quote, "We came into Government during Covid when the university was effectively closed for almost 2 years and the economy was on life support. We even had to ask public officers and teachers to take a salary adjustment. We were therefore not in a position to increase funding to UB over the past 3 years. Our term is not over and we are working very closely with the new Board of Trustees and President to put in place a sustainable financial plan for our National University." End quote.
