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And the Minister of Education stood up in response to Barrow, and explained that he did not see the need for the opposition to be a part of the board. And he added that the PUP faced similar abuses when they were in the opposition.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"It's always good to have bipartisan support and as much as possible to have everybody around the table and it's good, it's interesting but there's nothing quite like being in the opposition that allows you to fully appreciate and recognize and respect and acknowledge the importance of the opposition, that's the reality, that's why we behave the way we behave. So it's good to see why you feel that way. In reality under the 13 years of the UDP is that you had respect for the opposition, none, absolutely no respect for the opposition, you were not ashamed of saying that. In fact, I think you all used to boast about it. but your point is taken, the last thing we want to be is like the UDP. but I would make the point that the MCC has an established structure that they have used over many years, obviously we discussed with them looking at that structure and that's why we've insisted on having other people represented in terms of civil society, private sector, and then they'll have two projects so you'll have an education project, you'll have an energy project and certainly in terms of the education project, we want to ensure that we have representation there from organizations that are involved in education like ATLIB and BAPS and maybe GAMAS, those organizations, we already have BNTU of course so that's the objective so I do not believe, it is my view, that we really should go down the road of having political parties so to speak represented."
