Barbados Government's Noteworthy Investment in Education and Training: A Comparative Analysis

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.

As a young Barbadian born to Guyanese immigrants, I will never forget that this same old guard of the DLP cut off young Barbadians from realising their dreams and contributing, at their optimum, to the development of Barbados. This government has recognized that there needs to be options in line with personal and national developmental needs to equip Barbadians with skills; from construction and orange economy jobs to those required in the wide expanse of information and communication technologies.

This financial year, 2024/2025, the government estimates to allocate $417 million to education with a price tag of $131.1 million for UWI tuition fees. As a young person, I confess that I hadn’t initially put much thought into the annual costs of education and training initiatives, but I like many of my friends have benefitted. We are thankful and cannot be swayed by the hypocrisy of DLP leaders and operatives, some of whom are shockingly in positions on campus.

There seems to be a mindset paralysis plaguing some. On the one hand, they are adamant that the country must pivot to reflect a new job market. Yet, their analyses are firmly stuck in the past and they with no real effort to plan for the future. Confused? So am I. To do the very thing that they posit the nation requires, means that planning must include a futuristic approach to the ever-changing job market and how we assist our people – with training and retooling. By 2022, this government responded to the lack of skilled labour by introducing free training in architectural drafting, computer graphics and programming, PC, tablet and cellphone repairs, and coding and robotics through introductory six-month courses offered through the Community Development Division at the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment.

Through the National Training Initiative, more than 5 600 Barbadians learned new skills during the lockdown, Coursera and Google partnered to offer 20 000 scholarships to Bajan women in IT support, project management UX design, and data analytics. Additionally, the NTI offers an intro to artificial intelligence and the Student Revolving Loan Fund is currently accepting applications to access loans for cyber security and AI.

In 2023, the National Peace Programme launched Startwise to encourage and develop an industry for remote working while Project Dawn was launched to encourage entrepreneurship and implement training programmes suggested by the youth from recent surveys. It should be mentioned that an estimated $1.2 million is invested in the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme and $75.9 million in loans have been accessed through Fund Access. The underrated Trust Fund project, which is a major incubator, for small businesses and creatives, must also be factored into the overall approach to retraining and repositioning.

Katasha Thomas

Social media manager, National Peace Programme