The Tertiary Unit of the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training is charged with coordinating activities pertaining to scholarships, awards and grants that allow citizens to pursue tertiary level education locally, regionally and internationally. Over time, Government has provided significant portions of its resources to funding post-secondary education with the aim of meeting the human resource needs of the country. This has been achieved through the provision of scholarships, the payment of fees for citizens at the University of the West Indies and the provision of training opportunities at the Barbados Community College, the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic and Erdiston Teachers Training College.
The Unit is managed by a Senior Education Officer and deal specifically with the following matters:
- Processing of matters pertaining to tertiary education
- Processing of Barbados Scholarships, Exhibitions and Awards of Excellence
- Processing of National Development Scholarships
- Processing of Commonwealth Scholarships and other external scholarships and awards
- Processing of applications for bursaries, financial assistance and other sponsorship
- Identifying priority areas for training
- Providing career counselling to students who wish to pursue tertiary education