The Mottley administration on Tuesday, dismissed as “misleading” Leader of the Opposition Ralph Thorne’s persistent claim that a proposed letter to parents about the cost of educating their children signals an intention to introduce school fees.
Thorne made the claim in the House of Assembly during debate on a resolution under the Special Loans Act, approving a $313.6 million loan from China’s state-owned Sinopharm for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital expansion.
The funding will support a new oncology centre, burns unit, laboratory, outpatient wing, helipad, staff gym, day care facility, administrative block and a bridge linking Martindale’s Road to the former Enmore Clinic site.
The opposition leader questioned the policy behind the Ministry of Education’s announcement that parents will soon receive letters detailing the cost of their child’s education.
“Why in 2025 must a government issue a letter to the parents of this country reminding them of the high cost of education? The cost of education has never been low. There has been a higher cost of not educating people,” he said. “Why is it all of a sudden an issue? Is it an issue because this government intends to discontinue public education?”
But Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman swiftly pushed back on Thorne’s suggestion that new fees are imminent.
“The honourable leader of the opposition is misleading the House. He’s misleading the country,” Blackman said. “Never can I imagine that no one understands what the value of zero means. Zero means zero. The purpose of the letter is to help the country understand the value of our education, and to show that what we continue to do will see a zero balance to the household. Very simple.”
Prime Minister Mia Mottley also rose on a point of order, accusing Thorne of stoking public alarm and fears in an area that has been the bedrock of Barbados’ development for generations.
“The honourable member, as is his wont, continues to not just mislead but to misunderstand the value of numbers,” she said. “If a letter goes stating that this is what the Government of Barbados is paying on your behalf and that you have a zero balance, it must mean that there is nothing to be paid by anybody.”
Mottley further argued that the opposition should be the last to cast doubt on the government’s intentions, pointing to the historic record on university tuition fees.
“The only political party in Barbados since Independence that has ever tried and succeeded in charging Barbadians for education, kicking down the ladder on which they themselves rose, is the Democratic Labour Party,” she declared. “When on the 8 of August 2013, a death sentence was sent down on poor people’s children in this country by the charging of fees at the University of the West Indies… with a clear indication that more was to follow at the Barbados Community College and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute.”
The prime minister insisted that her administration has been consistent in its commitment to keeping education free.
She said: “I want it to be made absolutely clear to the people of this country who must not be misled by a member who has nothing to say on the loans that are before this House, but is now choosing to go far and wide and to create mischief deliberately so when as prime minister of this nation, and the minister of education, so charged with the responsibility along with the minister of tertiary education for the provision of education to Barbadians, have said absolutely no fees for any Barbadian.”
But Thorne doubled down, arguing that the intent of the correspondence, in his view, went beyond financial accounting.
“I don’t care who they bring,” he responded. “The letter is not about numbers. So don’t come in here and tell me it is about zero balance. The letter is an intent to punish the children of Barbados with the payment of fees if their behaviour in school does not improve.”
(SB)
The post Govt dismisses school fees claim; Thorne doubles down appeared first on Barbados Today.
