Today, the Union received a show of support from the Opposition PUP, which says that the Barrow Government is at fault for attempting to cut the subvention to the University.
In a press release sent today, the PUP said, quote, "The PUP condemns the decision of this UDP Government to slash… (UB's) subvention by 24.2% from $11 million to $8.34 million. This severe cut will inevitably lead to a reduction in the programs of study offered by UB and likely, to the termination of members of faculty and staff. While we recognize and acknowledge the economic crisis facing the country, we view this decision to be misguided and counterproductive. The University of Belize is our National University and the flagship of our education system. In the last decade, funding to UB has increased by only $1million from $10 million in 2008 to $11 million in 2019. This has severely undermined UB's ability and capacity to grow and develop which is unacceptable." END QUOTE.
This evening, former Education Minister Francis Fonseca underscored those points:
Hon. Francis Fonseca, Former Minister of Education
"The government of Belize has made the decision first to cut the allocation, the annual subvention that the government gives to the national university of Belize by 24.2% from 11 million dollars a year to 8.3 million dollars a year. Now you have to put that in context, since 2008 when we left the government the annual subvention for UB was 10 million dollars, so over a period of 12 years that subvention has only been increased by 1 million dollars over that 12 year period, in 2019 it was increased to 11 million dollars and the university have had tremendous difficulty and tremendous challenges in trying to really develop its programs and to move forward as a national university. So, that is a critical important issue that we want to address. Now we understand that the country is faced with an economic crisis, everybody understands that, but we fundamentality believe that it is misguided and it is counter-productive to be cutting the subvention for the national university of Belize at this time. When you're faced with a economic crisis that is exactly the time that you need to be investing in education. So if there are other cuts that have to be made, there are still many wasteful programs that the government is undertaking, contracts that they are continuing to push forward at the expense of the education system in this case and we believe that is fundamentally wrong."
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