Opposition Leader Owen Arthur yesterday urged Government to find creative ways to deal with higher education.
Speaking during his contribution to the Estimates debate in the House of Assembly, Arthur admitted that it would be a strain for Government to have to maintain its expenditures on university education.
He said that at a time when Barbados might be seeking not to invest in university education, Trinidad and Tobago was maintaining its investment at the University of the West Indies, and so was Jamaica.
“Barbados would put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage if we believe that university education is an area in which we can realize savings,” Arthur said, adding that “we had built our development on the skills of our people”.
He said Barbados had to find ways of making sure that the university was “not under this permanent sense of contingency in not knowing [whether] or not it is going to have its requirements fully funded”. Arthur suggested that Government use the resources of the National Insurance, if it was accruing faster than planned, by putting it in the form of an education levy.
