The Medical Faculty of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus, is one of Barbados??? top foreign exchange earners.
Principal and Pro-vice Chancellor of the UWI, Cave Hill, Sir Hilary Beckles, made this assertion today, during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Barbados, through the Ministry of Health, and the University to formalise a framework in the areas of training, infrastructural support and facilities, among other areas.
Sir Hilary disclosed that since 2009, the Medical Faculty had generated BDS $46.4 million in fees from Barbadian and international students. He added that in addition to the fees, the faculty had also received substantial funds for research grants and other activities totalling US $20 million.
Referring to the expansion of the Medical Faculty as a great success, the principal said it was the Cave Hill Campus??? first entrepreneurial project which cost BDS $25 million. He pointed out that the cost was borne fully by the University with the Barbados Government as the guarantor.
???This is the first large scale commercial project that UWI at Cave Hill has undertaken. The mandate of the council of the University which is made up of all of the governments??? [is] that we must be entrepreneurial, we must be innovative, we must use resources through the private sector, we must get involved in commercial activity and generate revenue.??
???We operated on the basis of a business model that we would attract students from all over the world who would come here, pay their fees, pay their economic costs and allow the revenues to demonstrate not only the sustainability of the project but its profitability,??? Sir Hilary explained.
He pointed out that contrary to popular belief there was only one Medical Faculty ??? not three – at the UWI and that was the one that existed at the Cave Hill Campus. The faculty, he explained, was centrally administered in terms of its policy but operated in multiple jurisdictions.
Sir Hilary added that the faculty???s success should not only be measured financially but academically as well, since the first cohort of graduates were so outstanding that they established new university records and standards for student performances in the areas of distinctions and honours.
He told those at the signing that the MOU was the expression of a best practice.
???We are committed as a university to the health care sector, its teaching, its research, public outreach and partnering with the Ministry of Health. It is a best practice between the Government, the private sector and the UWI community on a whole,??? the principal posited.
melissa.rollock@barbados.gov.bb