Minister of Education, the Hon. Santia Bradshaw, chatting with students of the Barbados Community College (BCC) on the sidelines of the National Give Back Programme Launch.
THE Barbados Community College (BCC) fully supports Government’s Give Back Policy and has already identified 236 students eligible to participate.
Registrar of BCC, Roger Worrell, said that those students are pursuing Bachelor programmes in Clinical Laboratory Science, Pharmacy, Art and Entertainment Management, Studio Art, Graphic Art, Physical Education, as well as Technological and Vocational Education.
They will give back to the community in the form of 100 to 150 voluntary hours to an approved local institution. This comes as the Government of Barbados, back in 2018, articulated a policy that reintroduced the payment of Tuition Fees for Barbadian students pursuing courses of study at The University of the West Indies (The UWI), BCC and Erdiston Teachers’ Training College, and in return asked students to give back a set number of hours in approved community service.
“This Policy gels well with the general aims of the College which are to provide students with skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary for productive work in the community; foster among staff and students a positive sense of community service and involvement; and prepare students for meaningful participation in society as responsible citizens,” Worrell maintained during the launch at BCC’s Liberal Arts Auditorium, yesterday.
“As Registrar responsible for student matters, I am committed to working with the Ministry of Education to ensure that the programme is a success for students, the College and Barbados as a whole.”
Principal of BCC, Annette Alleyne, also threw her support behind the policy, and urged students to embrace this spirit of volunteerism and giving back.
“See this as an opportunity, rather than another thing on top of all of the hours of work you have to do... This is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to stretch yourself, to test the limits on what is possible. Take this opportunity and run with it, become more creative in managing your time, so that you don’t neglect your studies or other areas that need your attention. Approach this process with gratitude, a commodity that is often in very short supply – gratitude for the opportunity,” Alleyne advised.
Minister of Education, Santia Bradshaw, pointed out that the reintroduction of tuition fees by the previous administration posed a stumbling block for many families. She however emphasised that funding education is a very expensive undertaking.
“And we said that one of the first things that we were going to do was to abolish the tuition fees at the tertiary level. But, we also said to whom much is given, much is expected. And it cannot be that Government continues to spend significant sums of money on educating our people, and not create in them a sense of giving back; a sense of purpose in terms of recognising that sacrifice is being made for you in order to make this country and certainly the rest of the world a lot better,” she stressed.
“We recognised that we couldn’t just be a government that gave a hand-out and in turn beat into you a sense of responsibility. We recognised that we had to inspire you to join with us in understanding how important giving back education and the educational opportunities are, but equally that you understood as well that isn’t something that we were just trying to get you to do because we put aside the funds to pay for this, but is something that is really who we are as a people.”
As of yesterday, 2,740 students registered for Give Back Barbados across the tertiary institutions, and there are 101 Approved Organisations registered on the programme. (TL)