Medical School To Open August! No Automatic Acceptance For BVIslanders - Flax-Charles

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Esther Durand/BVI Platinum News

(PLTM) - The Junior Minister for Trade and Economic Development, Hon. Shereen Flax-Charles has cautioned that BVIslanders will have to go through the same application process like other students to enter the medical school in the Territory.

Following months of delay, and years of planning and negotiations it appears that a medical school is expected to commence in August of this year. Based on the Report of the Standing Finance Committee (SFC) which met last month, Minister of Education, Dr Natalio Wheatley provided the new timeline.

At the SFC meeting, Hon. Flax-Charles indicated that BVIslanders attending the medical schools would have to go through the same application and admission process like any other student, and they would not be automatically accepted. She stressed that Virgin Islanders would not be allowed to just show up; they must qualify to attend the medical school.

The Education Minister told the SFC that prospective medical schools made applications which were successful, and they were given a provisional license. The Education Minister further advised that the medical schools were going through their accreditation process with ACCM [Accreditation Commission on Colleges of Medicine], an international accreditation body for medical schools.

While the SFC report did not name the school, last year Cabinet approved Tiber Health Public Benefit Corporation to establish a medical school in the territory.

The Minister had announced in May last year that a medical school would be up and running by the end of 2021, but this did not happen.

Instead, the Minister told the SFC, “The anticipated commencement date for operations was August, 2022.”

It was disclosed through the SFC report that the schools were also in negotiation with the Health Services Authority to lease space in the Dr. D. Orlando Smith Hospital. Further, the medical schools were also desirous of leasing space from the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College.

The Deputy Premier advised that quite a bit of work had taken place under the Higher Education Licensing Act.

Economic Boost

Premier and Minister of Finance, Hon. Andrew Fahie told the SFC that the medical schools were expected to start with an enrollment of fifty to one hundred students which would be a plus for the local people and economy given the students would need apartments, goods and services and transportation including land, airlift and ferry services.

He said this would help the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the economy in many ways. The Premier also noted that the medical schools had agreed that a number of students from the Virgin Islands would be facilitated for a certain fee to enable them to enroll in the schools locally.

Premier Fahie said that one of the schools was a well-known school with campuses in Puerto Rico, New Jersey, and some other areas, and he too shared that the school should be functioning in the Virgin Islands by August, 2022.

The Premier further stated that to assist the process, Cabinet made a decision to allow for the acceptance of dual accreditation to be recognised in the Virgin Islands.

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