UTT: We are ‘extremely uneconomical’

While 22 staff of the University of TT (UTT), O’Meara Campus, protested yesterday 287 looming job-cuts, university president Prof Sarim Al-Zubaidy said the UTT is overstaffed and must become sustainable.

Protesters urged the axing of Al-Zubaidy, the UTT board and Education Minister Anthony Garcia.

Amanda Thompson, OWTU head at UTT, lamented a diversion of $323 million in recurrent funds (salaries) to fund capital costs at the new UTT campus at Tamana and complained the UTT has not said who will be laid off.

Other protesters complained of highly-paid managers in jobs while lower paid staff are retrenched. “Management is eight per cent of workforce, but 36 per cent of salary,” one placard read.

Thompson said one of UTT’s recent accreditations was based on service levels by existing staff numbers.

Al-Zubaidy said UTT has an “extremely uneconomical” staff-to-student ratio of 5:1, exceeding world norms of typically 18:1 and 25:1. He had not caused the UTT’s over staffing, he said. Al-Zubaidy has been in the post for just five months. As for a well-paid foreigner retrenching lesser-paid locals, he said these decisions were made using internationally-used models of assessing each staff member’s current workload.

He said his priority is to make the UTT sustainable for generations, as a net earner of revenues not a dependent on state subsidies. Al-Zubaidy said all UTT programmes are loss-makers but for two which break even. The UTT gets a $10 million subvention, but its costs are $16.7 million, he added.

He justified the shift of $323 million to the Tamana campus by saying students need the best possible experience in top facilities.

On retrenchment, he said some managers are retrenched, all based on calculations of workloads.

He denied claims his salary is $240,000 per month, saying it is less than a third of that and is his lowest salary in the past 12 years. Saying “I know no one here,” he denied getting the job by being related to Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, saying his closest relative is in the United States. His home is Australia and Ireland, he had worked in the UAE and in his career he had worked outside the Middle East more than inside, he said.