In a major coverage shift beginning this fall, Bahamian college students enrolled full-time at the University of Bahamas may be required to handy preserve a 2.Zero grade points are common to acquire unfastened training and full financial insurance their compulsory route prices. Until now, scholarships and programs to UB have until now required college students to maintain a minimum of of 3. Zero GPA. Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Peter Turnquest stated the new policy would increase accessibility to better schooling for many. He also defended the coverage from critics who believe the lowered GPA requirement removes students’ incentive to attain the proper 3.0 GPA threshold.
After the Minnis administration announced its loose training promise closing yr without imparting details, observers struggled to distinguish the plan from the authorities’ longstanding policy of granting unfastened lessons to students who qualify under the national bursary initiative, which turned into the installation in 1978. The bursary program required students to hold a three. HOWEVER, zero GPA, Minister of Education Jeff Lloyd previously cited it does not cowl complete tuition fees.
That and comparable scholarship and provide programs–including nursing, schooling, and scholar-athlete monetary assistance programs–could be consolidated underneath the new Bahamas Government Tertiary Education Grant Programme. The program will cover lessons and all obligatory charges, such as generation charges, scholar hobby fees, library prices, course lab costs, and the necessary course external examination rate. However, the simplest Bahamian citizens enrolled complete-time at UB are eligible.
A UB advertisement posted in The Tribune yesterday said: “Current UB students receiving the nursing and schooling offers, scholar-athlete economic assistance, and the countrywide bursary as well as college students starting up enrollment for Fall 2019 ought to all apply to be taken into consideration.”
In a press launch, UB stated the authorities “reserves the right to bond furnish recipients in unique disciplines (i.e., trainer training, nurses schooling).”
Mr. Turnquest told journalists the university’s analysis suggests the program will cost about $19 million.
“We’ve provided for that (within the price range),” he stated. “We fully trust that it is funded and sustainable for a long time. The typical objective is to ensure lessons might be reachable to all of us and that price range does not end up a quandary to achievement for otherwise gifted children.”
Addressing the grievance that the GPA requirement is just too low, he stated: “We generally tend to sell people short because they come out of faculty maybe with a mean GPA that that’s by some means going to avert their achievement in college. I can inform you of many situations wherein people who have been discounted have long passed on and stuck fire because they’re now doing what they’re honestly interested in, most important or profession. They trap the fireplace and become very hit. We aren’t in the business of trying to pull returned or limit all of us or discourage them from attaining their complete potential, so this is an investment in younger people of this u. S. A. And an investment in the destiny of this usa. We need proficient people, and we want them from an extensive and numerous spectrum of society.”
Mr. Turnquest was speakme to the clicking on the sidelines of a Rotary Club of West Nassau meeting at Poop Deck on West Bay Street.
UB President Dr. Rodney Smith said the program does now not cowl non-guidance costs like the safety deposit, application expenses, add-and-drop expenses, and books in a video addressing the program. It does not cowl repeat courses or publications within the summertime besides extenuating circumstances sanctioned via the college.
Grant recipients have to complete their direction necessities within five years after beginning their studies, he said, until there are extenuating circumstances and the college offers an extension.
A UB press assertion stated: “Accommodation bills of $500 consistent with the person can also be given during the college yr (August to April) to every pupil who meets the standards. To qualify, college students need to have moved from any other island of the Bahamas to undertake the route of looking at, or in any other case be (or had been) award of the country, in foster care, or a youngsters’ home; be enrolled full-time; be less than 25 years vintage at the time of enrolment; and comply with residing in university lodging for the primary full years of having a look at, provided that enough lodging is to be had to residence them. The accommodation offers might be applied immediately to their housing prices in those instances. However, if following the grace length for educational probation, a student fails to grow their GPA to the minimal 2.0; then the lodging payments will give up.”