The government is out of touch with The College of the Bahamas (COB) \u2013 only he who feels it knows it.<\/p>\n
I wish to publicly support the College of the Bahamas Union of Students (COBUS) and its president for recent statements made in protest to proposed budget cuts at the college.\u00a0 To borrow a line from the COBUS press release, the proposed cuts in government subsidies to COB are an \u201cautocratic, visionless attempt to cripple the national institution\u201d.\u00a0 COBUS added: \u201cThis may be the straw to finally cripple our national ability to educate our own citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a proud alumna of The College of the Bahamas, I can honestly say only he who feels it knows it.<\/p>\n
The minister of education was quoted in yesterday\u2019s Guardian as stating that the proposed cuts, which are scheduled for COB, \u201cshould be done without affecting the college\u2019s level of service\u201d.\u00a0 That statement proves how out of touch he is.\u00a0 Perhaps he and other ministers who sit in lofty places need to try and put themselves in the students\u2019 shoes.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding the stellar education that students obtain at COB, it is no secret that there are administrative issues such as the dated registration process and the unavailability of classes, which continue to plague students.\u00a0 Budget cuts will not solve these longstanding issues.<\/p>\n
How can this government, on the one hand, continue to press for the establishment of the University of The Bahamas but yet, on the other hand, ask the college as well as other agencies to, in the words of Ryan Pinder, \u201creview their finances with an eye to cost savings\u201d.\u00a0 No doubt the consequence of budget cuts or \u201ccost savings\u201d will be an increase in fees, which will be a rod for the backs of thousands of students.<\/p>\n
The government needs to be reminded that for thousands of Bahamians (I was one of them for seven years) The College of the Bahamas is the only place where they will be able to obtain a tertiary education.\u00a0 Going abroad to university is still a luxury for many.\u00a0 Therefore, the government ought to be exercising some intellectual muscle to determine how to financially empower and not financially weaken our great college.<\/p>\n
I remain forever grateful for the many years I spent at the college.\u00a0 It was there I was molded into the citizen that I have become.\u00a0 As I watched the president of COBUS\u2019 lamentations, I sadly said to myself only he who feels it knows it.\u00a0 This government is clearly out of touch with the students at The College of the Bahamas.\u00a0 This can\u2019t be the government who \u2018Believes in Bahamians\u2019 and who promised that it would \u201cdouble\u201d its investment in education.<\/p>\n
The future University of The Bahamas should not fall victim to subsidy cuts while the government is contemplating increasing the salaries and benefits to Parliamentarians; the constructions of a new complex to house the Senate and House of Assembly and the purchase and or construction of a prime minister\u2019s residence.<\/p>\n
In addition, the government has re-employed a number of retired civil servants, by way of contract \u2013 some of whom receive salaries in the high five-figure range.\u00a0 To add insult to injury the re-hires, for the most part, have been assigned positions occupied by tenured civil servants who have either been redeployed to lower level positions while receiving the salary of the previous positions held, or sent home on full salary to await redeployment.<\/p>\n
There are numerous other instances of waste, unfettered government spending and incompetent management and deployment of resources which have brought The Bahamas to this place.<\/p>\n
Buyer\u2019s remorse is growing.<\/p>\n
By: Heather L. Hunt, Senator<\/strong><\/em><\/span> There are numerous other instances of waste, unfettered government spending and incompetent management and deployment of resources which have brought The Bahamas to this place. Buyer\u2019s remorse is growing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[93,31,40,142,60],"class_list":["post-31993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-corruption","tag-crime","tag-government","tag-incompetence","tag-plp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNassau, Bahamas<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\nFebruary, 2013<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"