Parliament has suspended its consideration of the Public Universities Bill the plenary stage pending the input of critical stakeholders such at the University Teachers Association among others, into the new bill which went through its second consideration on Tuesday, 15 December 2020, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, Mr William Quaitoo, told the parliamentary press corps on Wednesday.

“It is not true that the Public Universities Bill is passed”, he clarified, explaining: “Yesterday, what we did was a second reading of the bill and I state that the bill, as you know, went through a first presentation to parliament that was withdrawn and a new one laid and, so, once the new one is laid, of course, the Committee will have to consider it and bring a report to the plenary; so that is exactly what we did yesterday, so, the bill is still under consideration”.

The new bill, which has been laid and reported on, according to Mr Quaitoo, “is available for anybody to have a look at”.

“What UTAG and other stakeholders of academia want to do or are seeking to know, is: what is in the new one. That is what we have made available now. And, so, this morning, we met them – UTAG and other stakeholders – and gave copies of the new bill to them. In other words, the re-laid one to them.

“They are to study it and bring their comments for consideration and when we receive their comments, of course, during our second consideration of the committee, their comments that, of course, are acceptable, will be incorporated into the bill”, he said.

According to the lawmaker, “doing the second reading does not mean that we have passed the bill and we have all agreed to certain conditions that have to be fulfilled before the Public Universities Bill is passed”.

“To be precise”, Mr Quaittoo explained, “the national UTAG and the various universities, and maybe convocation and other key players in academia, were present at a meeting this morning and they have all received copies of the new bill and, so, if they go to consider it or they look at it and see that the first – in fact, we met them here some time ago – issues that they brought up, have been incorporated in this new bill and we all come to a common ground, then, of course, the bill will be passed”.

In his words, Parliament is working with the key stakeholders to finalise the bill.

“We are working in faith with them. We don’t want to pass any bill that those who are to be affected by the bill will have comments on”.

In view of the fact that Parliament is now awaiting the input of the universities, Mr Quaitoo announced that: “The consideration at the plenary is suspended; that is on hold until we receive their inputs on the new bill”.