BCC fund needs boost

The Barbados Community College (BCC) Hospitality Institute has been trying its best to assist students experiencing financial difficulties.

This has been through a contingency fund, which Deputy Principal Dr. Cheryl Weekes said is “drying up”.

Even though there is no tuition cost, she indicated that there are some students who still struggle to pay the registration fee of about $400 a year, as well as to buy uniforms, books and the paraphernalia used in their craft which are quite expensive.

“The contingency fund was established by the College to assist students over the years. However, as you can imagine more and more students will be in greater need and if that fund is not replenished you come to the point where it dries up,” she said, explaining that contributions to the fund were made from the fees students paid.

However, she believes it would be better if they had “consistent injection into the fund so that on an annual basis we can really give assistance to the number of students who need assistance”.

The Deputy Principal also observed the efforts of tutors from various divisions of the college who link with stakeholders to find assistance for their students, in the form of scholarships.

Dr. Weekes was at the time speaking to the media on the side-lines of the launch of the Barbados Tourism Product Authority (BTPA) Culinary Tourism Scholarship for students of the BCC Hospitality Institute. She commended the
initiative which will provide two scholarships valued at $2 500 each, annually, during the period 2017-2019.

“There are young people who really want to develop themselves, but financially they are not able, so we really are appealing to Corporate Barbados to invest in our young people… come on board to offer more scholarships; offer funding so that we can help our students.

“Sometimes it’s just bus fare or lunch money they need. However, whatever it is, it means that sometimes a student doesn’t attend class because they don’t have bus fare or lunch money. We really want to ensure that once they are in our programmes, that every obstacle that prevents them from developing and succeeding; we would like to mitigate,” she stressed. (TL)