Scholarship Unit overspends budget by $800k – ME&C report
This was according to the Ministry of Education report for 2011 which was laid in the House of Assembly on November 15, 2012 by Minister for Education and Culture Hon. Myron V. Walwyn.
The report indicated a number of challenges being experienced with its increasing student base and an overwhelming reduction in monies appropriated for the financial administration of scholarships awarded.
However, it further stated that the lack of sufficient funding became most critical as the year came to a close and insufficient funding was available for tuition payments for the Spring 2012 semester.
It continued, “The year 2011 saw the over expenditure of subhead Scholarships Abroad by $871,479.87 in an effort to honour the commitment the Ministry had to its students.”
The Unit also experienced difficulties as a result of an adequate scholarship database to access information and correlate student data according to the report.
As a result of this, it became increasingly difficult to generate reports and other necessary statistics relative to scholarship matters on a daily basis or as the need arose.
The creation of such reports, the document continued, requires manual review and research from the relevant student files and the overall situation has caused major delays in the timely preparation of requested reports and responses to concerns raised on various student matters by other departments, statutory bodies of Government as well as decision making for the Ministry.
The original budget allocated for scholarships abroad for the reporting year was $3,515,000 and the actual amount spent was $4,386,429.87.
The ME&C Scholarship Programme provides for persons who desire to pursue tertiary education but may be financially challenged and unable to do so through other means.
Based on recommendations from the BVI Scholarship Committee, Cabinet approved thirty-nine (39) persons to receive scholarships to pursue studies abroad for the reporting year.
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23 Responses to “Scholarship Unit overspends budget by $800k – ME&C report”
MEC is set in their ways of the friend thing and ppl not doing their jobs. Government also need to stop issuing scholorships because the country need to catch itselt financiall. Let people go locally stop issuing new scholorships for a year period. Let some of those away come home.
Good investment? When last you hear a company hire a IT person to work at their office? Those jobs are being outsourced with new technologies. WE need to send our kids to Hong Kong, Singapore and other areas in Asia for exposure and experience. We need to send our people to the UK, Cayman, Jersey and other jurisdictions to build on their experience and knowledge of the most important industry in our country. Sending them to US paper mills is not making this place any better and that's what you all don't realize. Good investment my a$$. Most of these people will be forced to come back home and forced in a corner to do a clerical job just because they're bonded. by time their bond is up they have grown so accustomed to being laid back they may not want to move anywhere after that. Train up the people to fill govt spots yes, but a greater focus need to be in the private sector. Spending all this money on crap and issuing permits at the same rate because none of the students are being trained in the areas of expertise that are on the rise in the BVI. Is it rocket science? My god, it's shameful! Unless we get people with private sector experience involved in these things you will be throwing good money all over the place and patting your backs for doing bull$h1t. How can paper pushing civil servants understand what's going on in the real world, which is the private sector? They have no clue and it's very evident. Just look at all the departments. Blind leading blind and the country going under.
Seems students should be taking out loans for their studies. It is an investment that needs to be paid back.
Scholarships span at least 4 years. The $4.3millon represents students from 2011, 2010 and so on. For example, if I'm approved for a scholarship (4-year) in 2010, then payments extend up to about 2014.
We blame the expats for what goes wrong in this country but it's our own greed that is causing its downfall. Many of our kids have dual citizenship, they are born in US or USVI but have their BVI rights and qualify for scholarships. They get a BVI scholarship, go off to the US to school and still get financial aid from the US end. They get their degree and because they're American, they remain in the US and work, not paying back the Government a dime. The ones that return are put in a corner in a government office most times doing things that have nothing to do with their degree. So, the folks remain abroad, working, making money off our tax dollars training and then we want to force people to hire the dregs that are in the BVI? Tell the people come home then we won't have to be here bickering about the same $h1t over and over. it's shameful