{EDITOR’s NOTE: At the press conference hastily gathered at 11:15 on a Tuesday morning, the Opposition Barbados Labour Party declined to offer any definitive plans even if of an #ISHALLWALK nature which was very successful not so long ago… This as the Freundel Stuart regime still reels under its own ineptitude of their collective body not even knowing if its hands, far less what right is doing as opposed to its left, are doing when their Education Ministry promises Bursaries for UWI and their Finance Ministry taketh away what is deemed largesse. In the midst of this tragicomedy we list highlights of Shadow Education Minister for the BLP, Edmund Hinkson‘s speech plus its full text and the main points of Cynthia Forde‘s concerns over ruling Education Minister Ronald Jones‘ attempted avoidance of his own inner demons plaguing his portfolio}
The Barbados Labour Party today calls for the resignation of Minister Ronald Jones from the Cabinet of Barbados. Failing this, we call on Prime Minister Stuart to dismiss him.
The citizens of any democratic country must be able to believe, rely and act on the words and public undertakings of a cabinet minister. They must be able to plan their everyday lives and future based on the statements and promises made by any member of the highest executive body in the nation. Events over the last six months have clearly demonstrated that Barbadians, whether students, their parents or the general public, have found it next to impossible to hold sacred the public pronouncements of this Minister as they relate to the funding of University of the West Indies’ onerous tuition fees of financially challenged students. Minister Jones has, in our opinion, failed to meet the expected standard of ministerial conduct such that citizens affected can reasonably plan their affairs and future.

On 15th April this year, 3 days after Member of Parliament Miss Cynthia Forde and I held a press conference, the Education Minister publicly announced at the 40th annual general conference of the Barbados Union of Teachers that his Ministry will be providing “a substantial number of bursaries so that no eligible Barbadian student will be disadvantaged” from attending UWI.

The Ministry of Education finally announced through a GIS release on the evening of 28th July that the bursary application forms would be available from the following day. This was the same date when I publicly expressed concern over this Government’s continued broken promises to put adequate arrangements in place for the financing of UWI students’ tuition fees and over the fact that there were no bursary application forms in existence and no criteria as to how bursary recipients would be selected.
Hundreds of Barbadians filled out bursary application forms on reliance of the Minister’s word that free grants would be given to financially disadvantaged UWI students. Required supporting documents were submitted by these many applicants. Weeks have passed since then and first UWI semester is almost midway in duration.

Furthermore, the Sir Hugh Wooding Law School Barbadian students were told on arrival last month that they will have to pay their own tuition fees, contrary to Minister Jones’ public assurances on 11th July.
In any proper functioning Westminster-type democracy, a Prime Minister would not have had to request the resignation of his cabinet minister under these or similar circumstances. The Minister, having announced government policy on an issue so fundamental to his country’s human resources development without his cabinet colleagues’ approval and now in fact, apparently, with his colleagues’ disapproval, would resign forthwith. Minister Jones for the last six months pronounced on a government educational funding policy without the approval of the Minister of Finance.

Minister Jones has throughout this whole episode also acted with a degree of arrogance which, in our opinion, has shown utter contempt for the people whom he has been elected to serve. His earlier incendiary statements in Parliament about “cracking some heads” and “shooting some people” have been matched by his more recent statements about “hungry people” running him down asking about the sharp decline in UWI applicants this year whilst the media “beat him to the ground” and people “run him down” about when we can get the bursaries.
Clearly, Mr. Jones is no longer capable of engendering any feelings of hope for their future in the youth of our country. Indeed, his ministerial legacy has been one of despair and frustration among thousands of Barbadians who wish to further their tertiary education. The public can no longer have confidence in this Minister in his public capacity.
Yesterday’s statement by the Acting Education Minister, Senator Harcourt Husbands, did nothing to inspire any one as to when, if at all, bursaries would be granted, under what criteria, to whom they would be awarded and how they would be financed.
{ADDENDUM – Hey, I wonder why? PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ASSIGNMENT IN WHICH PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION, SENATOR HARRY HUSBANDS, WAS TO ADDRESS THE AWARDS CEREMONY OF THE SIR CLIFFORD HUSBANDS AGRICULTURAL CHALLENGE, ON FRIDAY 10th OCTOBER AT ILARO COURT AT 10:00 A.M., HAS BEEN POSTPONED. A NEW DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY… Thanks, BGIS!}
The Prime Minister ought to relief the public of Barbados of the ministerial liability which, in the submission of the BLP, Mr. Jones has become and which the public can no longer afford to carry. The Education Minister himself has been quoted as saying that he is “really tired“. Previous Barbadian Prime Ministers from both political parties have dismissed cabinet ministers for much less.
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