Island Scholarship reportedly shut down since 2021; Isaac asks whether Board of Education is too burdened by loans to afford top CAPE honour

D.Gisele Isaac, the recently elected chairman of the United Progressive Party
(UPP), is concerned that no announcement of an Island Scholar has been made
for some time now.
 

Traditionally, following the CAPE examinations, the Ministry of Education and
the Board of Education (BoE) would make the announcement, naming the top
student coming out of each year’s sitting. However, according to her research,
Isaac says this practice appears to have ended in 2021.

The top CAPE scholar would receive an award of $54,000 a year towards the
completion of his or her undergraduate degree. Accordingly, the UPP
chairman is asking whether the BoE is so broke that it cannot afford to
maintain the Island Scholarship, as, reportedly, it is servicing loans for the
failed E-book project and the retrofitting of the Five Islands Secondary School
for The UWI-Five Islands campus.

In this vein, some persons are asking whether the BoE has financial
responsibility for the loans that funded the construction of the Sir Novelle
Richards Academy, as well.

If this is the case and the Island Scholarship has been abandoned, Isaac says it
is another sad and unfortunate development in education.

That was D.Gisele Isaac, Chairman of the United Progressive Party.