Med school to open January, few hundred students ready
Walwyn
A few hundred international students have already expressed interest in the medical school that is being established in the BVI, Education Minister Myron Walwyn has said.
This offshore school — which is called the University of Science Arts and Technology (USAT) and which is already established in other jurisdictions — is expected to open by January 2019.
The minister said administrators of the educational facility gave that report in a recent exchange with him.
“What they said of great interest to us is that they already have about 450 students ready to come into the territory to start … That says a lot to me,” Walwyn said while speaking on NDP Radio this week.
Start getting housing accommodations ready
While describing it as promising news for the territory, Walwyn is now encouraging local landlords to advance works to restore their properties so that they can possibly provide accommodation for these international students when they arrive.
“Those of us who can get our properties ready — our one-bedroom and our two-bedroom apartments — try to get them done as quickly as possible so that we can take advantage of what this has to offer,” he said.
Administrators of USAT — who recently received a licence to operate in the BVI — are also in the process if securing a location from which to operate the private offshore educational facility.
USAT, an accredited university, trains and provides degrees in medicine, surgery, nursing, physical therapy, pharmacology, veterinary medicine, and public health.
Institutions such as USAT are able to operate in the territory based on the territory’s Higher Education Licensing Act, a law implemented in 2016.
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Why is the hospital not being used for this. Turn the white elephant into a teaching hospital and provide real medical care to the residents of the island. Right now I wouldn’t go there to have a splinter removed. Last, this school sounds like one of these pay as you go nonsense schools not recognized anywhere except in the Third World. How about some background on this institution. Is this an accredited school? Where are the degrees accepted? Botswana? How does one going to this school become qualified to take licensing exams in the US, Canada or UK? Sounds like a lot of BS and is just a business to suck money out of students.
Botswana has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa and has invested heavily in education (unlike the BVIs), so no need to be disparaging about that country.
That said, completely agree with your other comments. I’d also add, who will be doing the teaching? Who is funding the start up costs? Who are these students interested in applying? And, can we please see the report on the viability the BVI govt commissioned some years ago?
Should have been the L Shape building reopening in January. Med school is not a priority.
Nice. I love this newz, good news for a change. I am going to check out this school. Ready for a career change
latest w—– scam..
This is ACTION!
What is that man smoking?!?! An enquiry is not a student signed up, the school is opening in the middle of the academic year and he expects it to be full?! They don’t even have a location and they are expecting to be open in the new year… Please don’t let any of these students treat me sa!
i cant believe he telling these landlords to get ready. knowing god well that the rent here in the BVI is to the roof! These persons that coming to this so call school will be students (non-working) students! get a grip minister and go back to the drawing board.
my second point how can you estimate time of medical school and not high school and rest primary school to be fix properly without teachers and student being sick from mold.. please don’t let me get started on the college unbearable learning conditions or, don’t let me start on the admin building that still got the town looking like we suffering.
GET A GRIP! i don’t care about 450 people that already come here from the school, fix what need to be fix before start a next unfinished project! oh! and don’t take the credit this project wasn’t your idea you just took up where he left off!
450 students is a whole lot for a country that is still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Irma. The residents that are now here can scarcely find an apartment, and now you are talking about landlords getting their housing ready?
This sounds more like, building more apartments.
It doesn’t seem like much planning has gone into this, Mr. Minister.
450 students and what housing accommodations are they expected to take up? The residential market is still in disarray after 14 months on and those properties available have been drastically marked up. We have no public transport system in place in-spite of MCW having all the research and plans to have moved it forward pre IrMaria. Cart before the horse again! The road network is atrocious for even those of us living here much less newbies whom will want to drive their own vehicles once settled on-island. Many areas are still dimly lit or not lighted at all. But hey; bring them in and let’s hope and pray that all goes well. Smdh….
Where is the updated immigration tracking system – entrex now that we have a few hundred more persons to track? The government needs to make haste and update this system so Immigration and Labour Departments and other agencies can use to track the migration of peoples in and out of the BVI. However, it is so sad that those two departments who have been interfered with from doing their jobs are in the pilot group of the BVI Government Transformation (termination) Programme without the necessary tools for their operations. What goes around must come around.
HLSCC and every local school provide a immigration loophole as they already know. One semester then set to take local jobs. Like the Filipinos tell each other let a local go through all maner of expense to bring you in because you only need to work for them for one year the get your real job.
I call BS.
If you look at this Med school’s website and list of campuses, no mention of BVI at all (http://usat.edu/campus/). Even if they started advertising for applications today, they would never get 450 students applying and admitted within two months.
And even if they *did*, no way that they would get immigration department clearance in time to arrive here, or find any accommodation to stay in once they did.
This all feels completely pie in the sky.
Even more pie in the sky…what medical educators are being brought in to teach these new students?? Or, will we depend on those already here? Staff?? Too many questions remain!
Now I wonder where these 450 med students going to lodge? This place done ain’t have enough apartments for who here and displaced after Irma…and you talking housing 450 new entrants to the Territory….is this Government thinking? You should also consider that students are not expected to pay the inflated rents that we have here…that the renting costs have to be moderate. SMH
I really have to smile. It’s amazing how we can take something that should be positive and turn it into something totally horrible. No encouragement, no hope, just plain negativity. Nice, keep it up!
It’s not about turning an idea into something horrible. It’s about how well thought out is this plan.
Now you are beginning to see why we have so many ignorant négative people in our mist. They are soley responsable for the mess they are going through.Then they want to use the Government is to be blamed défense.
Can’t find space to give our high school kids a full day
of school but here talking about medical school opening in February? This is just beyond ridiculous! Stop playing politics!
Who he trying to fool?
Himself!
I read these blogs and I’m not sure if I’m missing something. The Medical School is a private business like any other business coming into the country. The government from my understanding is not responsible for providing a place for them to set up. They will more than likely rent property for the school that is perhaps owned by a local. It’s just like if a bank was coming in they would find their own accommodations. From what I am reading from blogs it seems as if people think that the school is a government project. I think this view is wrong.
Secondly, I would think that having people come in the country to study would be a good problem to have. A significant number of expats have left after the hurricane, locals are fixing their properties and now they can be refilled by some of these students.
Is it me or is it that we are playing the usual politics?
If I was the owner of that medical school I was carrying my school and business elsewhere. The sheer level of ignorance that I just read in these blogs would drive away any investor. What do we want? How do we expect to continue to enjoy a good life? Why don’t we just wait until everything is perfect in the country to tell people come? We could pay for our big houses without tenants? We don’t need nobody and no businesses in this country?
Something is definitely wrong with us!
NONSENSE ..
you drive away local Drs and Nurses , but starting a med school .. more to this Story .
What is your point? You seem not to understand what is going on? If you don’t understand how something works just find out before you blog nonsense.
Another ” BVI AIRWAYS” wasted $ that can be used in a more meaningful way. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great idea to have a medical school in the BVI, this plan from what is written stinks to the high heaven.
Another idea that will fail due to the lack of proper planning and the BVI community will suffer.
The government from my knowledge didn’t have to spend one penny to get this medical school here. The Medical School would have to pay 10k for their license to operate every year. This is a private school. All the cost for operation rests with the school. I know it’s silly season but there is no need to write things that you ought to know isn’t true.
If you think that Medical School will not end up costing the BVI money, you are living under a rock.
Take a look at what happened to the Medical School in Barbados.
I am no big fan of the Minister but the Medical school is a good idea. We need this kind of project now for our struggling economy that has become over-reliant on tourism, financial services, construction and dare I say illicit drugs. This project would not cost the Government a dime as it is a private investment and privately managed. It would however provide numerous benefits to the economy: Like apartment rentals, car rentals, supermarkets sales, car sales, restaurants etc etc. Just ask St.Kitts/Nevis who for years their economy has received positive benefits with the presence of Ross Medical University. Remember that these students and faculty would be here to stay and not just here for a day or two. We cannot go wrong just make sure that we do our due diligence and that this University has not been involved in any form of fraud like what happened recently in Barbados. http://www.caribbean360.com/news/university-ceo-accused-of-duping-students-arrested-in-barbados
Along with the due diligence the Minister must be careful not to promise things that he knows will not happen. Realistically the school will not be up in 2 months. First of all they must find a location, secondly they must enroll, thirdly they will need accommodation for student and faculty. Why start in January with two semesters to go?
Also we have a lot of work still need to be done on our public infrastructure so to allow for persons to live and work here comfortably. Water, Sewerage, Electricity, Internet, roads etc will all need upgrading so we can handle and not get a bad reputation.
Realistically I see this happening after next Summer for the Fall Semester so be honest with the people. That should give us some more time to get our infrastructure upgraded and ready for the influx.
Great news!
An accredited institution with granting abilities usable throughout the US, UK and the wider world!
All right here in the BVI!
Excellent, excellent news for all of the peoples of the BVI!
I don’t care who dem whirlwind followers is. The best thing this man should do is concentrate on REBUILDING ESHS. why jump to start smme thing new? Focus on ESHS an get the kids off the streets
Where does this man priority lie? Look at the condition of this place. He cannot get the only government high school repaired so that our children can be in a comfortable learning environment. He closed down the public library and no sign of reopening.. Now talking about four hundred plus students coming in for a medical school.. This man seems as if he wants to destroy this territory. He did not grow up in this country , does not know how locals worked to build this place. How can he love this place? Time for him to stop and listen to the people who toiled to build this place. How much can our people benefit from a medical school at this time? Mark you the idea is good. The time is not right.
People stop playing Politics and start to look out for the best interest of the country. I refuse to belirve that the blogs that I read are the real views of different people. If that is so we are really worse off than I thought.
It is these types of investments that we need now. This will be instant assistance to the real estate market. How many people now are struggling to pay the hiked insurance premium? Without tenants many houses will go uninsured. We need people to help to stimulate the economy through the use of services such as restaurants, taxis, shopping etc that will boost employment. We need nurses in the BVI, well here is a nursing school right in your yard.
Stop this stupid politics. Myron did a good thing by getting this here. Give jack his jacket. The government didn’t have to spend one red cent to get this done excekt for 600k that Andrew spent that up to now I don’t understand. By the way, he said on radio that he was coming back to explain the money he spent. He reach back yet?
The government did not have to spend a red cent because the ground work was already done. The minister is trying to complete what was already started and put his name to it. Time for Virginlanders to see they are being played. Politics is taking front stage. We must reason. How many promises were made and not fulfille? Accountability is needed.
Soo what oppurtunities will this bring for lovals who would like to study medicine??
Like the never ending airport runway another pie in the sky NDP project that will end up costing the country down the line- can this place ever get anything right? I don’t think so!
Bringing another offshore medical school to the region is probably a good thing? There are medical schools in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados (Ross moving from Dominica to Barbados), Grenada…….etc. However, the decision to start the opening of the med school this early in the process seems rushed and highly political. Credit for starting the med school will come in due time. As such, we need to take pause and plan the medical school arrival right. Where are the facilities, housing, instructors ……..etc for the med school? Haste make waste.
Shouldn’t we focus on getting our school children off the streets by rebuilding the high school?
Shouldn’t we care about that first?