Education
Barbados Government's Noteworthy Investment in Education and Training: A Comparative Analysis
Barbados government's investment in education and training initiatives, including support for higher education, has led to significant achievements. UN report shows above-average GDP spending on education. Notable progress in student enrollment and free training programs.
5 min read
Originally published by barbadostoday.bb (opens in new tab)
Education has been the bedrock of Barbados. Even so, anyone in my generation will tell you that the very best thing any government can do is to invest in the education and training of its people. Barbadians should be supported through education and training initiatives to encourage the levels of creativity and innovation required to develop our country, and the best thing this government could have done was reintroduce support for higher education. It is a defining point of this administration, one that separates it by a light year from the previous administration, and there is a lack of credit given to this government for its moves in education, training and retraining.
According to a UN report, Barbados spends 6.45 per cent of its GDP on education, above the regional average of 4.59 per cent and the global average of 4.63 per cent. Considering the many serious challenges in the past five years, this is a major achievement. Education carries a high cost in many countries and governments, quite frankly, do not take on that burden. The government should take much more credit for investment in schools, efforts to restructure our standard education system, and a variety of free training programmes that are currently available.
In 2019, UWI reported an 11 per cent increase, eight per cent attributed to the return of Barbadian student enrollment. Less we forget, there was the injection into the Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts in line with this administration’s desire to develop the orange economy. So, for this administration to have covered tuition fees since 2018 while introducing 12 post-graduate scholarships, supporting the aspirations of 1 431 students in 2022 and over 1 200 students in 2023, this is a praiseworthy achievement.
I find it unsettling but alarmingly distasteful that the too disorganised, two-Messiah two-party can come to the public with their unrepentant comrades demanding development opportunities. Where were they when the campus was empty, void of any future minds to contribute to the development of the same country they purport to support all because the DLP wanted to eliminate higher education? Ask any of us who struggled to come up with a monthly payment plan to cover fees, plus pay bills and navigate life in an economic crisis how devastating that was. My memory isn’t short, thousands of government workers were sent home, and cost-cuts to mandatory infrastructural and maintenance needs in our country yet they could not “foot the bill” This government has done so after finding 4 weeks of foreign reserves, during an IMF programme, a pandemic, a freak storm and a volcanic eruption. Pardon me if I don’t buy the sudden-found morality on display because the DLP couldn’t foot the bill for such a fundamental pillar of Barbados’ development.
