The University of the west Indies (UWI) will formally inform the Antigua and Barbuda government later this week that the island has been chosen as the location for the regional tertiary institution’s fourth landed campus, Prime Minister Gaston Browne has announced.
Browne, speaking on his privately owned radio station, said that he expects to receive the official communication by Tuesday as it moves to have the Five Islands Campus should be opened in September with at least 1,000 students.
Browne told radio listeners that he had been in discussions with the UWI Vice Chancellor, Sir Hilary Beckles on the issue. Last Friday.
“Sir Hilary called myself and the Honourable Attorney General (Steadroy Benjamin) and he informed us that the members of the University Council have now unanimously approved the fourth landed campus for Antigua and Barbuda,” Browne said, adding that following the announcement by UWI, an implementation committee will be established by the university.
“My understanding now is that on Monday, the Chancellor, after he would have informed the various Council members, he would then issue a formal statement to that effect and he will then mandate the university to establish an implementation committee,” Browne added.
Browne said the three campus countries –Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados – which had concerns about the fourth landed campus have now been satisfied.
“You know there are three countries who had reservations, those reservations have been lifted,” he said.
The government has in the past said it would fund the university by a windfall tax on financial institutions and by diverting some funding to the prime minister’s scholarship programme.
