President of the Guild of Students Damani Parris. (FP)
Students at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies will be escalating their action on Friday, against government’s proposal to make Barbadians pay their full tuition from the 2014 academic year.
President of the Students Guild, Damani Parris told Barbados TODAY, the students will march from the Roy Marshall Teaching Centre at Cave Hill to the offices of Prime Minister, Freundel Stuart, Government Headquarters, Bay Street.
He said the mass protest, which starts at 9 a.m., was to show their dissatisfaction at government not accepting the need to retreat from the position of imposing the new fees.
He said the students wanted to send a message to government that they did not intend to let the issue die.
On August 22, the Guild held a town hall meeting to discuss the policy which takes effect next year. A petition was also circulated.
When asked for a comment, Minister of Education, Ronald Jones said he had nothing to say.
In his 2013 Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals, Minister of Finance, Chris Sinckler announced that local students would pay tuition fees at the University of the West Indies campuses across the region, while the government continued to take care of the economic costs. This new policy, Sinckler had said, would reduce transfers to the UWI by about $42 million annually. (EJ)