The Minister of Tertiary Education and Skills Training, Professor Prakash Persad, has confirmed that rehabilitation work will start on the UWI Debe Campus.
The Minister made the announcement at Thursday’s Post Cabinet Media Briefing, stating that work may start as early as Friday.
“Firstly, a scope of work will be done to identify exactly what needs to be done, and then that will be followed by the construction of the work itself. This has been done under the inspired leadership of the Prime Minister, and also in collaboration with the UWI. So I think this is really good news for us after a long while.”
The Tertiary Minister emphasised that the project is a collaborative effort between the Government and the University, with discussions ongoing to determine which faculties will ultimately be housed at the Debe Campus.
“We did speak to the Vice Chancellor of UWI and the Principal also. So it’s being done in collaboration with the Government. The Government is actually funding the construction of the campus. So it still belongs to UWI, but remember, the major funder of UWI is the Government. So we have this partnership with UWI, which continues. There are discussions for a variety of things. We have to look at the needs, the Cabinet has to look at the needs of the country, what is required, including Law, because it was initially meant to be that, but the needs change over time, and that is going to happen.”