MP Hinkson: What about the campus in the north?

 

The Shadow Minister of Education wants to know what happened to the promised campus in the north of the island.
 
The disappointed Member of Parliament for St James North, Edmund Hinkson told The Barbados Advocate that the campus, which was said to be an extension of the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic (SJPP) would have been ideal for his constituents.
 
It was back in 2010 that the Minister of Education, the Hon. Ronald Jones announced the need for greater space to accommodate students at that Pine, St Michael institution. Jones explained that the northern campus would have been focused on teaching specialised programmes, also noting that it would be beneficial in that it will eliminate the long journey of those students who live in parishes such as St. Lucy, St. Joseph, St. Peter, and St. Andrew.
 
Addressing his concerns on the side-lines of the donation of tablets made by the Aron and Christina Foundation to St Alban’s Primary School, Hinkson stressed that there is a situation where the Barbados Community College (BCC) and SJPP have been neglected by government.
 
“We have a situation where this government has increased the amount of sixth form schools, which is probably the only major educational policy that they had that has some maybe positive effect on education of young people in Barbados. However, what happens after they leave secondary school...In a lot of cases the University of the West Indies has been “closed off” to many of them because of the imposition of tuition fees which a lot of students can’t afford because of the economic circumstances of their families.”
 
“Therefore, one would have thought that the government of Barbados would have led the charge to “beef up” education at the BCC and SJPP, to put more funding in those institutions; to expand them to allow them to increase the capacity and intake of students that want to go to those institutions,” he said.
 
Hinkson explained that BCC, with its Fine Arts and Liberal Arts Programmes, including Nursing, Care of the Elderly and Information Technology courses – should be “beefed up”, encouraging young people to go there if unable to attend to the Cave Hill Campus. As for SJPP, he said that more financial resources should be put into that institution to allow for greater technical skills.
 
“The polytechnic is an old plant, many of the buildings are badly in need of repairs…capacity for student intake at SJPP needs to be enhanced,” he stressed.
 
The Education Shadow Minister further pointed out, “If 4,000 odd students are leaving secondary school every year and this year only 1,000 have moved from secondary school into the UWI because of the poor policies of the Democratic Labour Party government – what is happening to the rest?”
 
“We want to create a society that we can be proud of and that after 50 years of independence can take us forward to the next 50 years to exceptional heights…But we are not going to be able to do that with the educational policies that the Democratic Labour Party has and without enhancing and building up capacity of BCC and SJPP,” he added. (TL)

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