THE EDITOR: In a recent newspaper column, UWI St Augustine principal Rose-Marie Belle Antoine defended her decision to allow students who have not met the standard academic entry requirements to enrol at the university.

What was revealing about Belle Antoine's article is that she offered no statistical evidence that such affirmative action policies have been effective either at the UWI or other universities.

So, she asserts, 'Increasing and equalising access addresses only entrance requirements and does nothing to change the performance requirements, or degree results.'

This is true, but what Belle Antoine does not say is that 'increasing access' results in a higher dropout rate, as shown by data from top-tier universities in the US and UK that have instituted such policies and in UWI itself when GATE funding led to increased enrolment.

Since the UWI is government-funded, this means additional waste of taxpayers' dollars. Additionally, grade inflation is a typical response of universities to cover up their affirmative action policy failures.

Belle Antoine then states, without offering any proof, that 'it is a flawed assumption that students who achieve the highest CAPE results (or equivalent) perform better at university.' Is she saying that students with lower CAPE grades typically outperform those with higher grades? Common sense and IQ data suggest that this is extremely unlikely.

Finally, she writes that 'we base university access purely on this single CAPE exam, but yet we complain (rightly) about the unfairness of the common entrance exam.'

However, the only 'we' who complain about the SEA are those with an ideological or racial axe to grind, and one hopes that Belle Antoine does not buy into Cro Cro's Corruption in Common Entrance bigotry.

However, to the extent that it is true that some students' exam results do not reflect their true academic potential, Belle Antoine has the power to compensate for this through one simple measure: have everyone applying to UWI take an IQ test.

IQ scores are known to reliably reflect academic ability and future professional success. This will help reduce the wastage, lowered standards and reputational damage that Belle Antoine's ideological criteria will surely lead to.

JENSEN RUSHTON

San Fernando

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