(Barbados Nation) The American University of Barbados, whose official opening is set for today, can pose serious challenges to the University of the West Indies (UWI) medical school at Cave Hill when it comes to foreign students.
That warning, of sorts, came from Professor Nigel Harris, University of the West Indies Vice Chancellor, who admitted that Barbados’ recent decision to give the green light to an offshore medical school in the country caught him by surprise.
He told the DAILY NATION in New York that when the privately funded medical school, the first of its kind in Barbados but one of several in the Eastern Caribbean, gets going it could present Cave Hill with competition for foreign students.
“That surprised me, frankly,” Harris said of the Freundel Stuart administration’s decision to grant an operating licence to the American University. “The model for the faculty of medicine [at Cave Hill] is one that anticipated getting international students who would be paying full bore for their education. Now to have an international one, an offshore school, there would be a challenge. It does challenge the university’s school at Cave Hill.”
