LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Ministry responds over Brac Medical School

Friday,  April 22, 2005

Dear Sir,

I write in response to a letter which appeared in your edition of Wednesday, 20 April from Dr Waite Kirkconnell under the banner “Sister Islands Medical School May be Lost”.

The Ministry of Education has been developing a modern Education and Training Bill for some time. The advent of Hurricane Ivan prevented the Bill from going forward. However, the Draft Bill has now been tabled and is available for public information and input from the Ministry and on the www.gov.ky website.

This is not legislation which has been approved in the Legislative Assembly. In fact, the proposed Bill will not be able to go to the House until it is reconvened after the General Election. If approved in the Legislative Assembly, and assented to by the Governor, it will then become law.

I should point out that when the Draft Bill was developed, the Huntington Brac Medical School had not made an application to be registered by the Ministry of Education. Such an application has now been made, approved in principle by Cabinet and the initial papers are with the Ministry for review.

To further explain why the exclusivity clause was not removed before the Draft Bill was circulated to the public for comment, once Drafting Instructions for a Bill are approved by Cabinet and a Bill is drafted by the Legislative Drafting Department, Cabinet is the only body which can approve additions to or subtractions from that Bill prior to its going forward to the Legislative Assembly as a Green Bill. 

Under this process, any changes to the Draft Bill will occur once the period of comment from the public has expired.

I therefore thank Dr Kirkconnell for his input, and assure him that the Ministry has noted his concerns.

Yours sincerely,

Joy Basdeo (Mrs) MBE, JP
Permanent Secretary

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