est. 2007

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UWI, Tertiary Education Cost and the Budget

Submitted by Fair Play Sir Frank Alleyne’s interview on the People’s Business last night was spot-on. As usual, he was cogent, rational, reasonable and, of course, very ‘frank’, no pun intended. All the while, trying not to be overly critical of the administration at Cave Hill, but tacitly showing up its unreasonableness and excessive spending,…

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Submitted by Fair Play
Sir Frank Alleyne
Sir Frank Alleyne

Sir Frank Alleyne’s interview on the People’s Business last night was spot-on. As usual, he was cogent, rational, reasonable and, of course, very ‘frank’, no pun intended. All the while, trying not to be overly critical of the administration at Cave Hill, but tacitly showing up its unreasonableness and excessive spending, nonetheless. He walked the proverbial tightrope (having taught there for decades, so he was somewhat circumspect), but he did it well.

It was very interesting television! Lots of good points were made; but  a couple salient ones stand out:

  • current physical development at the Cave Hill campus is not sustainable;
  • maintenance and personnel to staff the new structures will be difficult to maintain;
  • salary levels are very high;
  • UWI’s operating cost (to central government) has risen exponentially from about $53 million in 2005 to over $126 million in 2012-2013;

  • students who cannot matriculate at BCC easily enrol at Cave Hill;
  • they ought to spend some time getting their feet wet at the BCC, before moving on to UWI;
  • there’s to much emphasis on numbers, and this will compromise quality for quantity;
  • UWI is preoccupied with just teaching, while the required research component (which should generate income and make it less dependent on central government) is lacking;
  • there is very little difference between local students who earn the prestigious Barbadian scholarship and those who attend UWI, since the state picks up the full tab now. The only difference is that the scholarship winners can study anywhere in the world;
  • the Budget measures are timely, as government has to act NOW; set its own austerity measures, and bear the pain; otherwise, we would have to abide by those set by the IMF;
  • and, more attention must be paid to agriculture.

Moderator Dale Forde posed a very important question to Sir Frank: ‘on the one hand, UWI is supposed to be autonomous and independent, yet its bills are met by central government; so, why can’t government intervene and set a ceiling on entrants?’ (I have paraphrased here).

Hear Sir Frank’s diplomatic reply: ‘Good point, but Government has never sought to micro-manage that institution’. That’s so true; but the people at UWI must have a conscience and act responsibly, bearing in mind that it’s the taxpayers who sustain that place.

The long-and-short of the matter is, government has to rein-in Cave Hill. Simply put: who pays the piper, must call the tune. Everyone and every institution must be frugal and exercise good judgement at this time. I shudder to contemplate the alternative.

103 responses to “UWI, Tertiary Education Cost and the Budget”

  1. The People's Democratic Congress Avatar
    The People’s Democratic Congress

    It is reprehensible that the Central Bank of Barbados does not have any online economic and financial statistics for 2011 and 2012.

    This is in fact a most disgusting situation at the Bank.

    It must be stated that up to a couple years ago, one could have physically gone into the Central Bank of Barbados on Spry Street, at given times over a pretty long duration, and could have got the latest copies of the economic and financial statistics (in book form) for the particular periods concerned, without getting any problems whatsoever.

    Now, for whatever reasons the bank discontinued that practice and asked individuals who otherwise would have wanted such booklets, to go on line to the Bank’s website and access the latest on such economic and financial statistics.

    Now, having given such an assurance some time ago, the Bank has been miserably failing to provide the latest economic and financial statistics for the many members of the public to access and digest, only providing economic and financial statistics up to 2010.

    What a disgraceful state of affairs!!

    The senior and junior technocrats at this now fast fading credibility challenged entity know the importance of having reasonably reliable up to date statistics of the type that the PDC is herein writing about, provided to the public of Barbados, so that some members of same public can, et al, use for assisting in sound national policy and decision making at various levels, for helping to bring about proper data and research reporting capability, and for helping to effect sound short and long term business and investment planning purposes.

    The Governor of the Bank knows this, yet this disgusting situation prevails.

    What is clear is that the Bank has been deliberately withholding certain types of information and statistics related to the performance of certain political economy financial variables in this country, especially in this period of sustained localized political economic depression in Barbados.

    Given that this is the way how the Bank has been grossly mismanaging these smaller affairs, one is tempted to ask the question: how is the Central Bank of Barbados really helping to manage the bigger affairs, like the political economy and services industry sectors of this country, other than to be helping run these same sectors into the ground??

    Indeed, some body must be held accountable for these and other wrong doings at this institution!!

    Now, again, clearly there must be a Commission of Inquiry into some of the operational affairs of the Central Bank of Barbados.

    PDC

  2. Barnabas Collins Avatar
    Barnabas Collins

    The paying of tuition fees at UWI has more serious implications other than paying for education. This is Barbados, we all know how things goes in Barbados, kisses go by favours as my mother use to say (Hope I am not misquoting her). I think that our main issue is that we need a paradigm shift as it relates on how we do things. When one scans the government or opposition benches one cannot find anyone with the radical and critical thinking qualities that we need for this time. In my estimation, when we needed radical thinking in the 60’s Errol Barrow stepped up. Then we had Tom Adams (like him or not history shows he was a visionary inter alia)…We now need another visionary to step forth and take us into the 21st century and I dare say we are sorely lacking in that area. At the core of this dearth is that most if not all of our politicians get into politics for “fatted calves”. There is no real vision or ideology about our country. So in difficult times they flounder as is happening now and herein lies most of our problems.

    I mentioned earlier about the far reaching implications about the payment of tuition fees. With one paragraph in the budget, we have widened the gap between the haves and have nots. We are about to introduce so many other social ills into our country that we may never be able to recover in our children’s lifetimes. Here in the Caribbean there are so many illustrations of when countries have this gulf between social groups how they end up with more murders than they are days in the year. Yet we are about to institute these measures that are not obviously well thought through. One just have to listen to our government ministers each day and one can sense that.

    Now according to our esteem Prime Minister, we are not living in Cou Cou land and bills must be paid and we all can agree to that but Mr. Prime Minister, we need leadership on this issue. There are a number of areas that can be cut and improved other than making our countrymen pay full tuition cost. And saying that the Student revolving loan fund is the answer is very narrow minded and shortsighted. WE all know how that will go. The ones who need the funding will not get it and the ones that can afford to pay will. So here are some suggestions in education that can be instituted with minimal effort:
    1) Let’s revamp the educational system to bring coherence and cohesiveness to the system. That is, matriculation agreements between BCC/SJPP and UWI. Therefore, allowing students who complete associate degrees to need only 2 years to complete their first degree.
    2) Students will have to acquire higher level qualifications for entry into UWI that is, CAPE, A’levels or associate degrees. If you want to gain entry into UWI without these requirements, you can pay and attend.
    3) Cap the amount of students that the government will pay for per year and that includes students in the medical faculty.
    4) Instruct UWI that they would need to have mechanisms in place for slackers and persons who are floundering in the institution.

    These are just a few suggestions that can reduce the amount of money we send to UWI but that would be a start. By the second year, we can revisit and refine the process. This is an ordinary citizen who didn’t go to UWI, that sat at his computer and made these suggestions. Can’t your team that boast of so many UWI graduates, come up with policies and programmes that consider we the people.

  3. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    How do those who oppose tuition fees propose to recoup some of that money? With a graduate tax? Two years’ national service? Or do they think they should get a free higher education, which entitles them to higher salaries and career opportunities, paid for by ordinary taxpawyerds and that’s it.
    Then when they join the brain drawn some other country benefits from Barbadian taxpayers. Is it fair that some US cities should have more Ethiopian qualified doctors than the whole of Ethiopia?

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