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Is "Free Education" For Real ?
posted (August 13, 2020)

And finally, for tonight, the media asked Faber about an important element of the PUP's proposed education reform. Among other relief programs, the Opposition is promising free education from pre-school to 6th form. Here are Faber's comments on that election promise:

Hon. Patrick Faber- Minister of Education

"Free education is possible but not by the kind of reckless promising that the opposition did when they had that press conference. But it cannot be blanketed by what the PUPs are saying: just paying for everything, paying for everything. In fact, I can guarantee you that that does not work. How? Because every single time an attempt has been made for free education, it has never been by the People's United Party administration even though they have tried it so many times. Every time it has been tried, remember free tuition back in 1993 done by the Esquivel administration? Remember the paying for tuition as well for second year sixth form done by the Esquivel administration? Remember $300 subsidy? You give me an example of where the PUP have ever honoured a promise to reduce the cost of education much less make it free. I can tell you from our own experience that education will continue to balloon if we are just going to say, we will take up the cost. In 1993, I was a student at SJC when Mr. Esquivel, Prime Minister Esquivel introduced the free tuition concept. SJC at that time charged $60 per student for the month, I think it was. So, I think it's about $600 a year. So, what the Ministry, the Government did at the time was they looked at what the cost was at the schools, if it is $600, then the government paid that $600. And the Government did that. That was the money that was required from the students at the time. When that was done, what happened? Those payments, up to today, are still being made in one form or the other. Although finance reform has changed the way it is done, those payments were made by the Government. But still, students now have astronomical costs and fees still. Schools found creative ways of saying, well that wasn't fees that we were charging, that was tuition. This country never knew the difference between tuition and fees before that was implemented. So, I am telling you, just throwing money and saying we are going to pay for it without streamlining what is actually happening in education and ensuring that we get a better bang for our buck is not going to help us in education. It seems to me that the PUPs plan smacks of just trying to say: "here we will pay, it is going to be free," without any kind of efficiency measures or quality measures in the system."

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