The Education System of Barbados

Abstract

This chapter explores current developments in Barbados’s education system and makes important linkages to the complexities of its colonial past. Beginning with a discussion of the historical and social foundations of Barbados, the chapter discusses the makings of Barbados as a country and society out of which the education system emerged, revealing deep negative colonial impacts on educational development. The chapter also examines the earliest of education provision developed through religious foundations and the advent of emancipation, and discusses how European settlement patterns on the island also facilitated the emergence of formal schooling. The chapter then discusses the institutional and organizational principles of Barbados’s modern education system developed in its independence periods during which a strong belief in the virtues and potential of education lead to educational policy-planning, financing, governance, and administrative structures at all educational levels. Finally, in Sect. 3 we find out how these developments, along with increasing economic stability, have led Barbados to be one of the most literate societies in the world. Sect. 4 examines Barbados’s educational trends and other aspects of the educational system and how they shape current efforts at developing a technologically educated society that will drive national development and compete in the global economy.