Gov’t allocates funds to students’ university costs

Government is paying tuition fees to the University of the West Indies (UWI) for over 6 000 students for the 2021-2022 academic year.

Minister of Education, Technology and Vocational Training Kay McConney gave these figures in Parliament on Tuesday during the Supplementary Estimates No. 10 2021-2022, where she said the majority of the $14.4 million assigned to her ministry will be allotted to paying tuition fees to the tertiary institution.

“I know that we had at one point been as high as over 8 000 students before the tuition was taken from being paid by government by a previous administration. We had dropped below 5 000 and now we are rising again in terms of allowing access of Barbadian students to higher education at the University of the West Indies.

“This not only supports the students but it supports all of those Barbadians who are seeking to get an undergraduate education, including those persons who would have worked and were seeking to take time away from work and go on to further their studies as well,” she said.

McConney said Government restored the payment of tuition fees for undergraduate students at the UWI in 2018.

The Member of Parliament for St Philip West also explained that a portion of the money will be used to support some of the economic costs of running programmes at UWI, including the Open Campus and the Seismic Research Centre which holds responsibility for monitoring earthquake and volcanic activity in the region.

“This sum of this supplementary for the Ministry of Education and Technological and Vocational studies will go a long way not only to deal with tuition, not only to deal with economic costs, but also to support research and other activities of the University of the West Indies,” the minister said. (AH)