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Washington University of Barbados (WUB) is a defunct medical school which opened in 2017 and closed the following year. The for-profit university received a charter from the Barbados Ministry of Education in 2016, but was unaccredited. Allegedly part of an international scam in which 200 students from India were conned out of ₹25 crore, the CEO and director of the school were arrested by the Royal Barbados Police and charged with fraud in 2018.
Background
In May 2016, The Barbados Advocate reported that WUB was "in the very early stages of making inquiries to be established in Barbados". Senator Harcourt Husbands mentioned the school while debating a bill to establish a Caribbean Accreditation Authority for education in medicine and other health professions. At the time, the American University of Barbados and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill were already operating medical schools in Barbados.
According to its website, WUB was established in 2016, but was also "a renowned healthcare institution that has offered Medical Degrees for over a decade." WUB claimed that it was "devoted to preparing and educating students from across the globe to become professional doctors", and that it was exceptional in "[implementing] the elements for USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Examination) within its curriculum."
In February 2017, the NationNews reported that WUB was "preparing to welcome its first batch of students" after postponing its opening by one year. The article noted that the campus would be based at the Casa Grande Hotel at Oldbury in Saint Philip, and quoted WUB director Deoraj Dalchand as saying that the school was in the process of finalising negotiations with the hotel. Casa Grande had previously been under fire when Nigerian students attending Barbados Community College complained of lack of running water and air conditioning.
Student, faculty, and staff concerns
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In addition, a video surfaced of WUB Dean Dr. Ram Prasad Upreti addressing students and complaining about the lack of books in the library, the lack of drinking water, and what he characterised as prison-like living conditions for the students. Questioning the very legitimacy of the medical school, he suggested that WUB could lose all its teaching staff because both the faculty and staff had not been paid.