The People’s National Party (PNP) has rejected the Government’s plan to establish a Culture, Entertainment and Creative Practitioners Institute at the Caribbean Maritime University, calling it a reactionary and short-sighted move. According to the PNP, the country already has “fit-for-purpose” institutions such as the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA) that are critically underfunded and capable of meeting the sector’s needs with proper investment. Rather than creating a new entity, the party believes existing institutions should be enhanced through coordinated, system-wide reform.
Opposition spokesperson on culture and creative industries, Dr. Deborah Hickling Gordon, criticized the proposed institute as a “knee-jerk, incomplete response” that fails to address the root causes of stagnation in the creative education pipeline. “Long-term, high-impact, resource-intensive decisions such as these should not be made unilaterally by ‘an enabler’ and presented to the sector as a fait accompli,” she said. The PNP’s alternative strategy includes strengthening EMCVPA, forging partnerships with the Creative Production and Training Centre (CPTC) and HEART/NSTA Trust to develop a digital and audiovisual training hub at the Caenwood campus, and streamlining curricula across major universities and training bodies. These, they argue, would create a national framework capable of nurturing talent from early childhood through to professional and continuing education.
Hickling Gordon went further to accuse the Government of using the institute to “save face” in light of growing criticism of its unsustainable Career Expo model. “Announcing a new institute… is a reckless allocation of resources,” she said, noting that student advising and expert guidance from established institutions could have supported the initiative more effectively. “Starting a new school is an expedient but inadequate response. It is the indolent application of a band-aid where deeper surgical solutions are required.”
With this stance, the PNP is reigniting a critical national dialogue on how best to invest in and grow Jamaica’s creative economy—one rooted in long-term planning, inclusive policy-making, and proper resourcing of the institutions already in place.
