According to a government release, a bill has been presented to the National Assembly in its first reading to provide for the transition of the Fitzroy Bryant College into a full-fledged university.
We consider this a great idea and we take up the offer to proffer our suggestions and comments on this move. We hope that such a development would happen sooner rather than later and we congratulate Mr. Sam Condor, Minister of Education, on this proposed historic and progressive move.
For the past forty years, St. Kitts-Nevis has been in the forefront of education in the Caribbean and in the process has been able to lay the foundation for academic brilliance for many of our young nationals.
In every field of academic and professional work, in every country of the world, Kittitians and Nevisians have lighted their corners with the brilliance of their performance.
For a small country with scare resources, this has been a remarkable achievement and Kittitians and Nevisians stand proud at the salute of their academic luminaries.
If we could do all this without even a university campus of our own, then there is so much more that we can accomplish if we had at our disposal the means to train and develop the agile minds of our young people.
We need the University of St. Kitts-Nevis, called whatever name. We need it now to capture the annual hundreds of bright sixth formers who have mastered the art of academic study.
We sincerely hope at the same time that in setting up such an important institution the government will ensure that it does not become used as a political plaything, but rather as a dignified institution, which will be run solely for the furtherance of knowledge which has no political boundaries.
We expect that it will be provided with a governing board of members who will be selected on the basis of scholarship and any other acceptable criterion except politics.
As we view this proposal we can envision the growth of a variety of educational institutions: a school of nursing, a school of veterinary medicine and an offshore medical school affiliating on some natural formula with a local school of education, school of arts and science, a school of banking and finance and other similar institutions to establish the university.
Where there is a will there is a way and we know that despite the small size of our islands, we are capable of this great thing of establishing a world-class bastion of learning. This paper compliments the government and the minister of education for this brilliant creative idea and wishes the project Godspeed.
