Partisan politics is clouding the debate over the payment of tuition fees at the University of the West Indies, laments a school principal.
And he is calling for a rational debate on the matter so the real issues at stake can be properly analyzed.
Dr David Browne, principal of Queen’s College, said he saw the end of free tertiary education coming and had proposed a solution as many as four years ago.
“It is folly how we are approaching this debate. In my opinion, it has gotten clouded in the sense that people are using it for political purposes. I saw this coming and said four years ago – I’m not saying this now because it’s happening – that somehow we would have to find some ways and means to fund and subsidize tertiary education,” he said, adding that the debate over free education in Barbados had been ongoing since 1986.
Browne, speaking to the DAILY NATION yesterday after St Leonard’s Anglican Church held its students’ recognition service, said he had suggested the set-up of a university fund using money from a special tax since the way Barbados had been funding tertiary education was doomed to fail.
