The University of the West Indies’ South Campus in Debe will be open from September of this year.
This was announced by UWI St Augustine Campus Principal Brian Copeland at the annual UWI St Augustine Campus Council Meeting on Tuesday.
“The campus is almost ready, you will see us opening our doors in September,” said Copeland.
He said while most people driving along the Debe highway would see unfinished buildings, the key structures were nearing completion.
“The buildings that we need will be completed by the end of April,” said Copeland, who explained the building most visible to commuters was the library.
“Well that’s the library, it will not be completed in this phase. If you were to take the time to go driving into the campus, you would see that the other buildings are, in fact, completed. There are four buildings that are yet to be completed that will be completed in phase two,” said Copeland.
The UWI Principal defended his continued interest in the $500 m campus. He said the campus would repay the investment through the graduands that benefit from the campus. He did this by doing a rough estimate which placed $4.8 million as the figure required for a person to live a modest to average life.
“This campus is $500m when you do the math properly, that’s 105 lifetimes that’s invested in this campus. The very first day that you graduate 105 students from this campus, you would have balanced your budget,” said Copeland.
He also said the university was seeking to incorporate the Couva Hospital into the University as the Couva Medical Multi-Training Facility by September this year.
Last year, the Government went into partnership with the university with a view to operationalise the hospital, which has been vacant despite being opened by the previous government in 2015.
The university has a 51 per cent stake in the hospital.
“We are looking to place the faculty of medical science there, we are pretty much ready to do that,” said Copeland, who admitted that the Government was also very keen on UWI’s progress with the facility.
“It has state-of-the-art equipment right up there with the best but sitting down for two years, the Government is anxious to activate it,” said Copeland.
“It is an opportunity to forge a much higher level of care, of quality healthcare for the nation and at the same time earning foreign exchange,” he said.
