Work on the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Debe cam­pus be­gins to­day and the cam­pus is ex­pect­ed to fo­cus on law “among oth­er things,” ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Prakash Per­sad.

A shift from the ini­tial plan for a law fac­ul­ty sole­ly was hint­ed dur­ing Per­sad’s up­date about the cam­pus dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s.

The is­sue had been the source of some con­tro­ver­sy since the new Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion took of­fice.

In May, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had slammed the state of the struc­ture built by the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment as a law fac­ul­ty. She took is­sue with the past Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment and UWI ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­lay in open­ing the cam­pus. She al­so took is­sue with UWI’s plan to make the Debe cam­pus a glob­al med­ical cam­pus and steer its open­ing in Au­gust.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had warned UWI’s ad­min­is­tra­tion not to “test her” and in­di­cat­ed Gov­ern­ment would open the cam­pus—but it would not be in Au­gust, as the place was a “dump.”

Yes­ter­day, Per­sad said, “It’s good news for T&T af­ter a long while and par­tic­u­lar­ly for peo­ple in South Trinidad. Af­ter a long hia­tus, the UWI Debe cam­pus—work is go­ing to start from to­mor­row (Fri­day), I be­lieve, on the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of this cam­pus. First­ly, scope of works will be done to iden­ti­fy ex­act­ly what needs to be done. Then that will be fol­lowed by con­struc­tion work it­self.”

Per­sad said it will be done un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with UWI.

On whether UWI will send stu­dents there and whether it will be a law fac­ul­ty or med­ical cam­pus, Per­sad said the cam­pus still be­longs to UWI and it’s still the “UWI Debe cam­pus.”

“We did speak to the vice chan­cel­lor of UWI and the prin­ci­pal on the mat­ter. It’s be­ing done in col­lab­o­ra­tion and the Gov­ern­ment is ac­tu­al­ly fund­ing the con­struc­tion of the cam­pus, but it still be­longs to UWI. But re­mem­ber, the ma­jor fun­der of UWI is the Gov­ern­ment, so we have this part­ner­ship with UWI, which con­tin­ues,” Per­sad added.

On whether it will be a law cam­pus, Per­sad said the dis­cus­sions pro­vide for a va­ri­ety of things.

“The Cab­i­net will look at the coun­try’s needs—what is re­quired, in­clud­ing law, as it was ini­tial­ly meant to be that—but needs change over time and that is go­ing to hap­pen.”

Asked if the cam­pus would fo­cus on law among oth­er things, Per­sad said he pre­sumed so. He said the scope of work will take a few weeks or less to find out ex­act­ly what needs to be done so con­struc­tion can pro­ceed smooth­ly.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is very keen in hav­ing this cam­pus open for the ben­e­fit of stu­dents in South Trinidad and for the south econ­o­my,” he added.

—Gail Alexan­der