UWI moves to fix Debe campus plumbing issues

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) says long-stand­ing plumb­ing fail­ures at its Debe cam­pus are set to be per­ma­nent­ly fixed, with ini­tial es­ti­mates for the work placed at about $4 mil­lion, as con­trac­tors pre­pare to be­gin ad­di­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture up­grades ahead of a planned Au­gust open­ing.

Speak­ing dur­ing a tour of the fa­cil­i­ty on Wednes­day, UWI prin­ci­pal Pro­fes­sor Rose-Marie Belle An­toine said the de­fec­tive plumb­ing sys­tem, caused by shift­ing land, has been a per­sis­tent struc­tur­al prob­lem since the cam­pus was built.

Tem­po­rary re­pairs were car­ried out over the years, in­clud­ing dur­ing the COVID-19 pe­ri­od when the fa­cil­i­ty was re­pur­posed, but she said the new works should fi­nal­ly re­solve the is­sue un­der gov­ern­ment-fund­ed up­grades.

The de­vel­op­ment comes as the uni­ver­si­ty push­es to open the South Cam­pus in Debe, with the Fac­ul­ty of Law set to be its flag­ship pro­gramme.

Pro­fes­sor Belle An­toine said the uni­ver­si­ty wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to fund the crit­i­cal re­pairs and op­er­a­tional works, de­scrib­ing the cam­pus as a “na­tion­al project” aimed at pro­tect­ing tax­pay­ers’ in­vest­ment.

She said sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­nal up­grades al­ready have been com­plet­ed, in­clud­ing the in­stal­la­tion of fur­ni­ture, re­fur­bish­ment of floors, paint­ing and ma­jor in­vest­ment in in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy in­fra­struc­ture.

“This is a bet­ter fa­cil­i­ty than the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus. It’s more mod­ern; it’s all smart tech­nol­o­gy,” Pro­fes­sor Belle An­toine said, adding that class­rooms are equipped with ad­vanced dig­i­tal sys­tems to sup­port teach­ing and learn­ing.

She said the cam­pus is close to be­ing ready for use, al­though some build­ings still re­quire work.

“In ac­tu­al fact, it can be used now, but if you want to do a prop­er thing … some ar­eas still need at­ten­tion,” the UWI prin­ci­pal said, point­ing to the Fac­ul­ty of Law build­ing.

Con­trac­tors hired by the Gov­ern­ment are ex­pect­ed to be­gin the work soon, al­though Pro­fes­sor Belle An­toine said UWI does not con­trol the con­struc­tion time­line.

Still, she said the Fac­ul­ty of Law is prepar­ing for re­lo­ca­tion in time for the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Law Dr Ali­cia Elias-Roberts said the fac­ul­ty sup­ports the move but stressed that key aca­d­e­m­ic in­fra­struc­ture must be ready be­fore stu­dents’ tran­si­tion.

“Our stu­dents will need a li­brary be­cause with law you need doc­tri­nal study and you need to have the fa­cil­i­ties in place,” she said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the grow­ing role of dig­i­tal tools and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in le­gal ed­u­ca­tion, Dr Elias-Roberts said phys­i­cal learn­ing spaces re­main es­sen­tial.

“Not every­thing will be up­loaded by AI … you still need phys­i­cal space, com­put­er labs and moot court rooms where stu­dents can do ad­vo­ca­cy train­ing in per­son,” she said.

She added that once com­plet­ed, the cam­pus has the po­ten­tial to be­come a re­gion­al leader in le­gal ed­u­ca­tion.

“With all the in­vest­ment that has been done here, it would be­come the flag­ship fac­ul­ty in the Caribbean once it’s open and ready,” Dr Elias-Roberts said.

The Debe cam­pus, a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar project cov­er­ing about 100 acres, was orig­i­nal­ly built to ex­pand ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion ac­cess in cen­tral and south Trinidad. It in­cludes aca­d­e­m­ic build­ings, ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fices, stu­dent fa­cil­i­ties and a law fac­ul­ty com­plex with a moot court.

Af­ter the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment led by then-prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar demit­ted of­fice in 2015, the cam­pus re­mained large­ly un­used for years un­der the suc­ceed­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion. Con­cerns were raised about struc­tur­al is­sues, in­com­plete works and the cost of out­fit­ting and main­tain­ing the fa­cil­i­ty.

De­spite the de­lays, UWI con­tin­ued in­vest­ing in the cam­pus, spend­ing more than $150 mil­lion of its own funds to com­plete con­struc­tion and un­der­take re­pairs.

The fa­cil­i­ty al­so was used dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, which con­tributed to ad­di­tion­al wear and tear.

When PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turned to of­fice, she vowed to re­open the cam­pus for its orig­i­nal pur­pose as a law fac­ul­ty.