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The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI) has ad­dressed the sta­tus and fu­ture of its South Cam­pus in Pe­nal-Debe, out­lin­ing restora­tion ef­forts, fi­nan­cial needs and a re­newed strate­gic di­rec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to a UWI state­ment, “The Cam­pus was found to be in a state re­quir­ing ur­gent restora­tion” fol­low­ing an as­sess­ment con­duct­ed be­tween May and Ju­ly 2022. Since then, the uni­ver­si­ty has sub­mit­ted bud­get pro­pos­als to gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing cost es­ti­mates and up­grade plans.

De­spite lim­it­ed re­sources, UWI pri­ori­tised and ex­e­cut­ed “crit­i­cal re­pair works and se­cu­ri­ty en­hance­ments” in prepa­ra­tion for a phased re­open­ing. The uni­ver­si­ty con­firmed that restora­tion of key build­ings such as the Aca­d­e­m­ic Build­ing, Stu­dents’ Union, Au­di­to­ri­um/Moot Court, Health Fa­cil­i­ty, Cafe­te­ria and Gym­na­si­um has been com­plet­ed “to a high stan­dard,” and those ar­eas are “ready for oc­cu­pa­tion.”