Abandoned $600 m south UWI campus…

A SHAMEFUL SYMBOL OF SPITE

THOUSANDS of southerners travel to St. Augustine or environs each Sunday evening, with packaged food to be stored in fridges and to last them the week.

Others do the daily grind to and from their homes, often in snail-pace traffic.

Students share rented apartments in the university town or nearby Curepe, Tunapuna, or adjoining communities.

After a week of classes at the St. Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies, the students typically take home unwashed clothes and return at the end of the weekend with clean attire and cooked meals.

This is an arduous decades-old routine, but more burdensome in recent years because of the crime crisis and runaway rental charges.

The UWI South Campus, constructed in 2013 on 100 acres of former sugar cane lands at Debe-Penal, was aimed at easing that challenge for affected undergraduates, along with expanding the student body and housing the Faculty of Law.

The project, done by a Chinese contractor, cost taxpayers some $500 million.

A southern university town is what Kamla Persad-Bissessar, as Prime Minister, envisaged.

“For too long our children have spent countless hours on the road trying to get into the university and jobs in Port of Spain,” Ms. Persad-Bissessar reasoned.

The initial body of students was expected to number around 450.

But many more were to be accommodated in successive academic years.

UWI’s student roll had swollen from around 7,000 in 2000 to almost 17,000 a decade and a half later.

The administration of Ms. Persad-Bissessar saw the campus as a key driver of change, an emblem of a focus on education and learning in the modern competitive world.

Employment opportunities were also anticipated.

But it was never to be.

The once-spanking campus is now jaded, riddled with weeds and a sanctuary for stray dogs and the occasional vagrant or drug addict.

Within days of the People’s National Movement getting into national office in 2015, former President Max Richards – an ex-UWI principal, no less – criticised the project.

Then-St. Augustine Principal Brian Copeland set January 2016 for the first intake of students, a timeline he revised to August 2017.

“I can tell you that people will move in August so we will start a programme in September,” Copeland told the media

The authorities have since stopped talking about putting the campus to use.

As Opposition Leader, Dr. Keith Rowley had opposed the construction of the campus, saying that St. Augustine was the most central location for students.

Rowley said the Persad-Bissessar Administration was building the campus at Debe “because of the demography of the student population without discussion or agreement with the other parties in the University of the West Indies.”

Interestingly, after Richards’ remarks, the UWI administration strongly endorsed the project.

“The site at Penal/Debe is particularly important with respect to community engagement, integration and impact,” the university stated.

The investment would help to fortify the country’s development plan, drive economic diversification, and improve stability and wealth creation potential, the institution said.

It would also offer “better alignment and distribution of social capital with economic activity and bridge existing north-south barriers.”

But after all these years, the campus is playing no role in education and social mobility.

It is a clear indication of the urban-centric nature of the political administration, a continuation of its historic prejudice against outlying opposition-represented districts, and its chronic rural neglect.

This is evidenced in several other ventures – such as the refusal to complete and utilise the Ramai Trace Hindu School – and the relative lack of development and opportunities in far-flung communities.

Shameful spite and ill-will appear to be the obvious reasons why a modern university campus has been laid to waste while there is a need for such a facility in the midst of a burgeoning student body.

Overwhelmed southern students would continue their weekly grind.