“Not a single one!”
That was the reaction of a senior official at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies in response to SUNDAY SUN questions on whether any students had turned up with proof of having received one of the thousands of bursaries promised by Government eight weeks ago.
On July 12, while speaking at an official groundbreaking ceremony at the campus, Minister of Education Ronald Jones disclosed: “Young people have been saying ‘you need to do more to help us over the threshold now that we’ve made this adjustment in tuition fees’ and we are committed to that. In the first few years, we will do some 3 000 bursaries to help those with challenges and this has already been agreed to.”
And with classes set to get underway in full force across the entire campus tomorrow, the registration records now show that the roll will be one third less than it was at the end of the last academic year. SUNDAY SUN investigations showed that the full roll of undergraduate and graduate students barely topped the 6 000 mark last week, well below the 9 100-plus one year earlier.
