Our public investment should be contingent on a promise to come home!
by BFP Reader “JJ”
Minister of Education Ronald Jones officiated at an awards ceremony last Tuesday where he congratulated the National Development Scholarship winners.
Many of these scholarships are major investments for Barbados with recipients being funded for three or four years of higher education abroad in London and the USA. One young fellow will be studying engineering in Taiwan for four years. The paper said the total for this year alone is $1.7 million and that is no small change. (Ed: Nation story here)
“As it now stands, the newly graduated engineer and his friends can take their taxpayer funded degrees, settle down in London or Los Angeles to make a life for themselves and never give another thought to Barbados.”
Although the Minister urged the scholars to return to the island and contribute to its continued development, this is entirely optional. I think it’s time to make this return to Barbados a formal contract obligation with major scholarships.
The Minister made the statement that Barbados is funding education in areas where we lack personnel: business intelligence, statistics, theatre management, disaster management, paediatric cardiology, education policy and planning, language pathology, gerontology, copyright law, archives conservation, urology and environmental engineering.
That is the purpose of our public funding of this higher education abroad, so I think it is only fair and wise that we demand four years in return from the beneficiary of any major scholarship. Once they have served their four years living and working in Barbados, they would be free to go abroad, but the hope is that the young professionals will settle down in Barbados and in so doing help in the development of their country.
This is only fair if tax-payer monies are funding major studies. Without a formal commitment, these scholarships are just another free giveaway that we cannot afford. With a formal commitment, the scholarships become a true investment in the future of Barbados.
Barbados Free Press 
Hear, hear! Make it a more formal contract like a mortgage…..if you default by not returning and working for the government not private sector for 5 years, your guarantor (in most cases your parents) has to repay the fees with interest. Makes business sense.
By any chance have either of you (JJ or Worried Bajanne) ever been a NDS or seen the bond that the Scholar or their guarantors sign? I believe the bond states that the Scholar is expected to return to Barbados and work at least for the duration for which the scholarship was provided – so if they were sponsored for 4 years then 4 years work in Barbados. They are bonded to return upon completion. Sadly many of them opt to stay where pastures seem greener. Futhermore, even though these are crucial areas for which the government perceives a need for skilled personnel, there aren’t vacancies awaiting these scholars. It would be interesting to see if the urologist will come back to a consultant post or just a registrar post at the QEH. It must be utterly demotivating to study so hard and return and not fully utilise new skills or be able to truly make a difference because there just is no opportunity to do so.
Do these “bonds” that anonymous speaks of have any force in law? Has any grant recipient ever been held to the “bond”? Has any action ever been taken to recoup the scholarship money when the “bond” is broken?
I didn’t think so.
It is all more meaningless talk with no action while the taxpayers bleed millions.
Especially when the more well off get these scholorships which their families can afford in the first place.
The National Development Scholarship is different to the Barbados Scholarship and Barbados Exhibition as far as I recall. The NDS is targetted at those areas in need of development but the others can be applied to any field. The contracts/bonds are usually different I believe.
The bond for the Barbados Scholarship/Exhibition usually has a clause that allows the recipient to leave Barbados after returning if they aren’t able to find a job in their field. Unfortunately to outsiders it may just look like the recipient never returned if you’re not closely involved in their job hunt.
I cannot speak to the difference between an NDS and a Barbados Scholarship (if there is one). But I know more than one Barbados scholar and the situation as far as I understand it is that as part of the scholarship agreement, which is signed by the scholar, the scholar is required to return to Barbados to work.The agreement also contains a clause which requires the scholar to pay back the scholarship funds in full if he/she fails to return to Barbados. The only exception to this is if there is no job possibilities in Barbados; such as might be the case if the individual did a degree in “Politics and Integrity” or “Objective Journalism” or for readers with no sense of humour “Aerospace Engineering”.
I agree with this. They should be celebrated for their work but they need to return here and work for a time at least because some one else paid for their education abroad. It is almost pure snobbery and robbery to think that you are so brilliant that you deserve Barbados tax dollars to get the degree of your dreams then offer your skills to somewhere else because you are now too great and too good for little old third world Barbados.
The whole system of scholarships and studying in Barbados is arbitrary and politicized. Most of the people getting these scholarships did so because of connections.
The guy doing the engineering degree in Taiwan might very well want to return to Barbados to work. If he does manage to get a job over here (which would only be because he has local connections) he will find his overseas qualifications are ridiculed and belittled. Crab in a bucket syndrome.
@Scholar. Get your facts together before posting garbage. Can you name one Barbados Scholar who received his/her scholarship through connections rather than through merit? Didn’t think so.
Sometimes reading the dribble posted on here is overwhelming. Connections in order to get scholarships might be true to who wants to believe it but I believe in this case it is a bit to farfetch.
National Development Scholarships have a requirement to return to Bim and work for at least as long as the course of study.(The one I applied for did anyway) It is all great to have, but in the end we all work to live. As much as we like to think that we are advanced, Barbados just is not ready yet and many who pursue non traditional fields will not find employment that allows them to apply their expertise if they return to Barbados.(Ask my friend who did engineering at St.Augustine and is now working in the credit card section of a bank) That was my experience and the experience of many of my friends from secondary school. Since graduating with a software engineering degree in 2006, I have had 2 replies from organisations in Bim when seeking work, and only 1 led to an interview. By contrast, I have had many interviews with companies in the US, Canada and the UK. I am on my 4th position since graduating and each time I changed jobs I have been able to advance my knowledge and skills. My sister however, returned to Bim because she just could not stand living anywhere else. After almost a year sitting at home, in sheer desperation she wrote to a company and offered to work for them for free. That tactic plus a favour from a family friend led her to a job there. That was 15 years ago in a different economy.
P.S. My sister won an exhibition.
As Anonymous 38 said, dictating that a scholarship winner returns to Barbados to work and them actually having a job in Barbados are two separate things. My wife is an exhibition winner and has now returned to the Island from Trinidad (Hugh Wooding Law School) and cannot find a job!
If the government wants to make it manditory for persons to return to Barbados to work after they have completed their studied, then they should find places in Government for these scholarship and exhibition winners.
One of the challenges Scholarship winners will find is the ability to find jobs. While the list of scholarship areas is complied by the various Ministries and departments with input from the private sector, the truth is the opportunity for these students to find employment is very low. There is, however, limited evidence to show that some of the scholarship/exhibition winners who have not returned to Barbados are still contributing to national development through business to business collaborative efforts, networking and sharing of knowledge.
@Scholar…your posting reflects the ignorance of the system. Having been a member of the selection committees for national and commonwealth scholarships, I can attest that these selections are completely transparent with no political or “big up” or “who you know” affiliation.
I agree with you junior. I am a former Scholarship winner who believed i should give back to the country so i returned home. however although now highly qualified and trained in a area deficient here, the politicking and nepotism has plagued me. Considering i turned down a 60- 100 K pound a year job in the UK. i am not againts anyone who decides not to. (PS) the company who offered the job at that time was will to pay for my bond also..we just aren’t ready and this is almost 10 years ago.