Mia Mottley

What I'm telling you cannot be changed is a last generation.

And hearing you say this, I think back to some of the points in our conversation.

Populations declining, skills in short supply in many places in the world, people not feeling like there's upward mobility.

All of these, I feel like we can sort of draw a circle around and the Venn diagram of all of them becomes the singular idea of mobility.

giving people a chance.

And what I mean by that is, when you're talking now about a population, I go, I often wonder why so many governments and corporations can't see the direct link between their actions and why people wouldn't want to have a child.

They're very quick.

I've seen, you know, whether it's the Elon Musk who ever go, this is the greatest challenge we're facing.

People are not having enough children.

And I go, yeah, but why would you want to have a child in a world where you cannot pay for that child's schooling, where there is no healthcare for that child, where you don't know where the next meal for that child is going to come from?

You don't need to bribe people.

Yeah, you don't create the environment that is necessary for them to want to expand.

And if you're a state...

is not going to catch the ball for you, then why do it?

So that's why, and you asked me why, because in Barbados, we believe that we have a responsibility to provide for every child education.

from pre-primary to tertiary.

The last government removed tertiary education, free tertiary education.

The first thing we did when elected, even as we were entering an IMF program, was to reintroduce free tertiary education for Bajans at the University of the West Indies at Cape Hill Campus.

Because without education, the opportunities are simply not going to be there, and the capacity to reason with people will equally not be there.

By the same token, we provide access to healthcare.