?Principal of the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Cave Hill Campus, Sir Hilary Beckles, is pleading with Government not to abandon the Errol Barrow vision by forcing students to pay tuition fees.
Sir Hilary said other ways to cut costs must be considered before taking a step that could return Barbados to the days of slavery.
“What is required at this time is not an abandonment of the social contract,” he said, referring to Barrow’s policy of publicly funded secondary and tertiary education as a means of empowering the masses, “but an application of Barrow’s style and creative imagination”.
“There are many choices available to us that can be workshopped, and numbers crunched, assuming that the only objective of the Government is managing the fiscal deficit.
“Let’s explore them all before we fall victim to the desire of a few who wish Barbados returned to the ‘Barbarity Times’, a term used by the enslaved to describe the slavery part of our history.”
