Grenada fears Barbados will steal its offshore business

When Hurricane Maria devastated Dominica in 2017, it leveled much of the island’s infrastructure, including the offshore campus of Florida-based Ross University School of Medicine.

To Dominica, the presence of the campus with its enrolment of hundreds of mostly American students represented an important contribution to the gross domestic product, employment for some locals and a key link to tourism via visiting parents, relatives and friends. A financial gap had to be filled after the school was forced to leave.

But given the devastation from the superstorm, the university decided to relocate its campus to nearby Barbados as it wanted to remain in the Caribbean as it is just a few hours by air from the US.

Today, students and faculty members are well settled in the southern parish of Christ Church, but even as normal school life continues, authorities in Grenada are beginning to fear that the island’s own offshore school system will be eventually undermined by Barbados because of its superior infrastructure.

Grenada has since the mid 70s hosted the highly successful St. George’s University and for years had been the leading campus of its kind in the region. Others have followed ever since.

The fear in Grenada, says the New Today newspaper, is that Grenada with its limited airlift and other facilities will eventually lose out to Barbados as it is simply easier to connect to Barbados from cities around the world on non-stop flights compared to lengthy change overs to get to Grenada. Ross became fully settled in Barbados in 2019.

“The Bajan government is giving Ross a lot of concessions and Ross has been competing with SGU now for students and it is logical that they will do so. Students who have to fly from California and have to take two planes to get to Point Salines in St George’s, they only have one flight to get into Barbados,” the paper said, citing the inevitability of Barbados whittling away Grenada’s portion of the offshore medical school market.

Barbados also has way better night life, tourist attractions and easier access to other Eastern Caribbean islands than Grenada, making a more attractive home base for students studying medicine and other academic disciplines.

“Because Barbados has these expressed advantages they will always be able to give us competition and as the school continues to grow and grow, and as the curriculum strengthens in terms of performance and pass rates improves, SGU is going to get competition,” the publication noted.

Barbados through Prime Minister Mia Mottley had also campaigned for the Ross move after the devastation by the category five storm and had rolled out the red carpet to the school.

“This is the type of investment that is very important to the advancement of the Barbadian economy, and which will also add immeasurably to our diversity. I am confident that this prestigious university campus will impact significantly on the Barbadian landscape on many levels,” she had said at the time of announcement. “We are committed to transforming Barbados into a hub for educational and medical services, including educational and medical tourism. We recognize that these areas of tourism are among the fastest growing areas in travel and tourism worldwide. This venture will be an important pillar in that mission.  We are very proud of our infrastructure and expect RUSM students and faculty to settle very quickly within our community, benefitting not only academically but also from the rich cultural experiences that they will have while living here,” she said.