Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Vice Chan­cel­lor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les says they are in full sup­port of Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to make changes to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (Gate) pro­gramme.

In the state­ment yes­ter­day, Beck­les said the uni­ver­si­ty would now sup­port Gov­ern­ment in the im­ple­men­ta­tion process in or­der to achieve the ob­jec­tives set out.

"The uni­ver­si­ty has long cel­e­brat­ed the vi­sion­ary com­mit­ment of suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments in de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing the Gate strat­e­gy to fund ac­cess to high­er ed­u­ca­tion. This has been a crit­i­cal in­vest­ment in the hu­man re­source that has served the coun­try and re­gion well. In­deed, we be­lieve that the coun­try as a re­sult is on the cusp of a ma­jor trans­for­ma­tion in its eco­nom­ic and so­cial struc­tures as it fo­cus­es on in­no­va­tion and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment," Beck­les said.

"The uni­ver­si­ty cel­e­brates the ap­proach to Gate re­form which was cen­tered on the im­por­tance of re­search and da­ta analy­sis as the ba­sis of pol­i­cy for­mu­la­tion. In this re­gard, I am pleased that my col­leagues were able to par­tic­i­pate in the process. "The po­lit­i­cal com­mit­ment to so­cial eq­ui­ty in ac­cess to Gate is com­mend­able. The de­ter­mi­na­tion to en­sure that a dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of the tax bur­den does not fall up­on work­ing-class fam­i­lies, and oth­ers who con­sti­tute the most vul­ner­a­ble so­cial groups in the so­ci­ety, will stand well the test of time."

Beck­les said it was rea­son­able for stu­dents to make a fair and rea­son­able con­tri­bu­tion to their ed­u­ca­tion fund­ing un­der the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances fac­ing the coun­try. "This prin­ci­ple of shared cost is rea­son­able and the grad­ual ap­proach to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of this con­tri­bu­tion shows sen­si­tiv­i­ty to stu­dents and their fam­i­lies, as well as for the plan­ning of stu­dent af­fairs at the uni­ver­si­ty," he said. He said the fo­cus of fund­ing re­search around per­ti­nent ar­eas nec­es­sary for the ad­vance­ment of the econ­o­my at this time is a best prac­tice the uni­ver­si­ty sup­ports.

On the stu­dents' re­sponse to the cuts, Beck­les said, "It is com­fort­ing that our stu­dents have recog­nised the pos­i­tive as­pects of the Gate re­form and are will­ing to ac­cept that good pol­i­cy and gov­er­nance make for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment." He said he re­alised that the im­pend­ing means test­ing for en­try could be a chal­leng­ing mat­ter, but said UWI was al­so ready to as­sist the Gov­ern­ment in the for­mu­la­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of a means test­ing mod­el that is prac­ti­cal and ef­fec­tive.