BLP’s Edmund Hinkson: We will find the money

One of the many assurances that the Barbados Labour Party has made is, should they get in power following the 2018 General Elections, they will make sure persons will get to attend the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus at a significantly reduced cost. When asked how they plan to do such, St. James North candidate of the BLP, Edmund Hinkson assured they would “find the money” to do so.

Hinkson shared this with the media following a pep talk he delivered to the Class 4 students of the Gordon Greenidge Primary School, who were set to take the Common Entrance tomorrow.

He expressed that Barbados could have never afforded free University of the West Indies education, however, each government, from the Right Excellent Errol Barrow, to Tom Adams and so on, found the money to fund the education.

“We will find the money. It’s a question of priorities. At the time the DLP said they were going to save $42 million, it in fact turned out to be a lot less because the student population was cut so it came down to $30 odd million,” he said.

“We will find that money. We will obviously shift from somewhere to accommodate because we think it is a priority that is fundamental to the human resource development, and consequently to the overall development of Barbados, that the poor working class of Barbados has access and an opportunity to go to UWI,” it was further explained.

Hinkson went on to note that it was also the BLP’s plan to amalgamate the Erdiston College, BCC and SJPPI into the University College of Barbados.

“This was something that had started in terms of the amalgamation of those institutions under BLP, but it was not completed. This Government unfortunately did not go through with that and we felt that it was something that they ought to have gone through with. We thought it would have brought together the resources of those institutions, where, for example, rather than having a principle for each of those institutions, we would have one principle and one board of directors and it would rationalise costs in that way,” he said.

“We really can’t afford to have separate educational institutions as many overlap in terms of the same cause. So, a university college of Barbados would be on the front burner.”