Minister of Education Ronald Jones said the institution was still on the cards but his department was in the process of ironing out matters related to academic, technical and human resource issues. These were critical to make the merger of the Barbados Community College (BCC) and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic (SJPP) seamless.

Jones said the issue
of timelines was causing
a few problems as
well as the integration
of the technologies,
and ensuring that workers' employment rights were not violated.

"There is the issue of the human resource because you have to protect the rights and the privileges because they fall squarely within the civil service domain and one has to be conscious
of what you do.

"One also has to enter into a whole lot
of trade union issues . . . . Those present challenges but I believe once we can get everybody onboard we can work out those challenges which the amalgamation into a University College of Barbados would present," Jones said.

He explained that joining the three tertiary institutions would not create competition
for the University
of the West Indies (UWI) but would indeed complement it.
The BCC, SJPP
and Erdiston Teacher Training College offer programmes
in areas such as education, fine arts, pharmacy and nursing, which are not offered
at the UWI." (WB)