The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus is to institute several measures to address safety and security for its students and staff members as it seeks to recover from low ratings from stakeholders in a recent survey.

Professor Dale Webber, principal of UWI Mona, during Friday’s (March 5) Campus Council Meeting, said among the issues highlighted by surveyed students as areas for improvement is that a mere 22.7 per cent felt safe in 2020. It was a sharp decline when compared to 2019 when 37.7 per cent of student respondents argued that more needed to be done.

“Safety and security was the lowest and we do need to do more on that, especially since COVID times,” Professor Webber noted.

The decline in UWI’s security perception was also underscored by staff, 65 per cent of whom felt the institution took “reasonable steps to provide a safe and secure environment for all” in 2020. In 2019, however, staff agreement with the physical environment at UWI was 78.6 per cent.

According to Webber, the decline was expected amid the anxieties being felt due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In terms of the physical environment, again, there’s a reduction in 2020 over 2019 but we expected that based on our COVID scenario—a small fall from 78 per cent to 65 per cent. The institution [will take] responsible steps to provide [a] safe and secure environment,” he said.

Also falling among UWI staff, were the areas of pay satisfaction (down from 38.9 per cent to 37.5 per cent); having the necessary resources to perform (dropping from 58.4 per cent to 49.2 per cent); opportunities for promotion (from 54.4 per cent in 2019 to 44.3 per cent); and assigned workload accomplishment (declining from 60 per cent to 55.4 per cent).

More responding students felt that the learning schedule and programme structure was unconducive to co-curricular activities and internship opportunities as the 46.7 per cent of those who agreed in 2019 dropped to 39.1 per cent last year.

Less than half of all students surveyed were satisfied with the quality of supervision for respective theses/dissertations/research papers, as 2019’s 50.1 per cent average fell to 42.5 per cent in 2020.

“The survey tells us that for all the questions asked, there is a small reduction in the perception from our students and that is of concern but it is also noteworthy that this is expected as we moved from our regular [face-to-face] programming to the online delivery and platform,” Webber, who also serves as UWI Mona Pro-Vice-Chancellor, explained.

The overall student satisfaction scores at the Mona Campus also dropped from 62.45 per cent in 2019 to 58.22 per cent in 2020.

Kicking off its 2021 series of council meetings with the Mona campus, The UWI intends to host similar sessions at Cave Hill on March 12, St Augustine on March 16, the Open Campus on March 19, Five Islands on March 26 with an April 30 University Council culmination.