New trust scheme for students to earn cash – Minister

Students could soon turn their creativity into cash, with a government-backed trust set to allow them to earn from their ideas and save the proceeds until they reach adulthood, Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman announced Tuesday.

The National Student Trust, to be created later in the academic year, forms part of the government’s broader effort to reshape the island’s education system and better prepare young people for the realities of work and entrepreneurship, he said.

“For a long time, for example, within the arts, our students have done well at NIFCA, they’ve done well in a number of things, they get a pat on their back, they’re featured in the press, but hitherto in our education system over the last 60 years that has never accrued into any source of income or business broadly,” Blackman said at the unveiling of new murals created by secondary school students at the Wyndham Grand Barbados Sam Lord’s Castle.

The new trust will allow students across disciplines – including art, fashion and music – to monetise their work, with earnings deposited directly into the account until age 18.

“You can sell them, you can earn revenue from it, but that revenue that you earn goes into a trust so that by the age of 18 years old you can then recoup what you’ve earned as a student and then you can use it for different things,” the minister explained.

“You can expand or start a business, you can further your studies or if you want to use it to put down a deposit for a parcel of land.”

The move signals a deliberate shift towards linking education with tangible opportunities for economic empowerment, he added.

Blackman said: “The transformation of education that we are undertaking as a country at this point in time means that what our students now must do is real-world practical application of creative ideas and new things coming into a modern era, where they can leave school not just with certification but with the skills necessary to go into the job market and the business market and to be able to now pivot in a way that allows them to prosper.”

He stressed that the government’s agenda is not only about updating infrastructure and curriculum but also about ensuring students’ work has real-world value.

“Transformation of education has to prepare our young people for the world of work and business, and we set a very bold agenda in creating the number one education system in the world,” he said. “Part of that therefore has to be that all the moving parts of education – infrastructure, curriculum, the training of our teachers, the student activities and the student-led movement – must be full front and centre of what we’re going to do.”

(SB)