AS STRIDENT public discussions continue over the Government’s decision to terminate free university education for Barbadian students attending Cave Hill and the two other campuses of the University of the West Indies (UWI) from the new 2014 academic year, a very pertinent question remains unanswered by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s administration:
Why was such a major decision to depart from a fundamental policy, which had distinguished Barbados in the field of education with the historic era of Errol Walton Barrow, unilaterally rushed for implementation without any structured consultations – either with the administration of the Cave Hill campus or the governing council of the University of the West Indies?
The consultative process, after all, is a most central feature of democratic governance; and Barbados has long earned a stout reputation as a functioning multiparty parliamentary democracy.
So why is it that both the pro-vice-chancellor and principal of the UWI Cave Hill Campus, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, and the UWI’s vice-chancellor Professor Nigel Harris have felt compelled to separately go public with their deeply shared disappointment over the lack of expected consultation on this vital issue that will affect at least 6 000 Barbadian university students?
What makes this sad lack of consultation even worse is that Prime Minister Stuart, Minister of Education and Human Resources Ronald Jones and Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler had already been in possession of a very important report, that of The Beckles Commission on Higher Education, well in advance of presenting the country’s new Budget.
Although armed with the report of the Beckles Commission, which was chaired by Professor Beckles and included, among others, top representatives of the Barbados Community College, Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic and Erdiston Teachers’ Training College, the Government chose the presentation of the new “Sinckler Budget” to announce its unilateral decision to terminate its payment of the 20 per cent tuition fee for all Barbadian students from 2014.
It is the exemption from paying the 20 per cent tuition fee that had made the significant, qualitative difference for Barbadian students attending the three UWI campuses.
Therefore, the recurring disturbing question for a democratic nation like ours is this: why the surprising failure, or refusal, by the Government to engage the Cave Hill campus, if not the integrated UWI decision-making council as well, on the sensitive and controversial termination of free UWI education for Barbadian students?
To his credit, Professor Beckles has been passionate in his eloquent engagements in the media in defence of the significant social and economic contributions of the Cave Hill campus to the Barbadian society in general. For his part, UWI vice-chancellor Harris has had to publicly lament the Barbados Government’s failure to afford the university “the opportunity to at least meet with [us] and work out what would be the best system by which tuition fees might be introduced . . .”.
