Minister Cummings Responds To Plagiarism Allegation

Member of Parliament for La Horquetta/Talparo and Minister of Youth Development and National Service, Foster Cummings, says he has never asked any tertiary-level institution to bend its rules to accommodate him. Minister Cummings issued a statement clarifying a matter that arose in 2007 when he was a postgraduate student at the University of the West Indies. He says the issue was a matter of an oversight of not referencing quotations in the footnotes, although the book was cited in the bibliography. Minister Cummings says a decision was taken that he withdraw from the programme and re-enter after one year. He says although he duly re-registered for the programme after the elapse of one year, he did not sit any of the exams in the second semester and did not complete that particular programme of study. At a UNC meeting in Claxton Bay on Wednesday night, Leader of the Opposition, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, challenged a Government Minister to confirm or deny allegations he was banned from pursuing postgraduate studies at a University because of plagiarism.