The University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus (UWI) is now the biggest competitor that the Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity (BIMAP) has in relation to their business programmes.
Chairman of the Board of BIMAP, Benson “Ricky” Straker recently divulged this information at the annual general meeting, which was held at the institute yesterday morning. He said that the development and formation of the Cave Hill School of Business made the threat to their Business Institute a little more direct.
“So there is tremendous direct competition and of course there’s always a lot of other training institutions that are coming up,” he said.
However, despite the University being BIMAP’s newest and biggest competitor, according to the audit report of 2015, their revenue was able to increase. The Chairman revealed that they were able to transition from a deficit to a surplus so far for the year, however, he added that along with this surplus, there was also an expenditure increase of $400 000 plus dollars.
“The increase in both revenue and expenditure was the direct result of the involvement in two major projects which expanded the programme offerings of BIMAP and broadened the student base,” he said.
In addition to that, Straker revealed that they have searched for ways to help the prospective students on the financial front and explained that to do this, they have formed links with loan institutes, which he hopes will help to ease the burden of the students and also broaden the student base of the institute.
The Executive Director of BIMAP, Dr. Sonia Greenidge Franklyn, pointed out that they currently go into the secondary schools and have small seminars with the students. She revealed that there is currently a programme that the Institute facilitates to help the students who are now leaving secondary school, called the “World of Work” programme. In addition to this, to help create more awareness within the younger students about the benefits of BIMAP, she expressed that there is a need and interest to extend their outreach to more secondary schools, in an attempt to further broaden their student base.