The Tribune

WE HAVE been asked to make clear by the College of The Bahamas that the insertion in parentheses of the phrase “in terms of quality lecturers” in a direct quote from Dr Rodney Smith, the president, in a presentation he gave to the Rotary Club of East Nassau and reported in The Tribune (Poor audit practices “will not stop COB transition to university”, October 1) incorrectly implied that he was saying the college currently did not have quality lecturers.

In fact, Dr Smith was saying that were it not for budgetary challenges, the college could have more quality lecturers and advocated for higher wages for existing faculty members.

He said: “Under the University of The Bahamas, we would be in a better position to negotiate salaries and not be confined to a salary range. We have individuals at the college and I am sure elsewhere as well who have reached the bar, the top of the range, 10, 15 years ago. And as I say all the time that doesn’t make sense to me because the price of your rent or your mortgage or your price of gas didn’t stop, the price of food did not stop, inflation didn’t stop, so why is it that we are using a system where we stop increasing your income? That did not make sense to me, that was one answer. The reason we are in the position we are in today is because we lose a lot of excellent faculty members who cannot accept the salary that we have been offering. So we’ve lost them. That is not uncommon, a lot of institutions experience that. We’re going to be turning that around.”

The Tribune is happy to set the record straight.