In 2002, the government of Barbados announced that it intended to merge the Barbados Community College with the then-named Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic and the
Erdiston Teachers' Training College to form the new University College of Barbados. One reason for this was the capacity issues among the three institutions. In the 2000–2001 academic year, 13,282 people applied to the three institutions. Only 4,504 could be accepted. A project team was established which involved staff from the Ministry of Education which led to a proposal for the amalgamation. The Business Plan indicated that the merger would increase access to work-class education, respond in a proactive manner to the demand for existing programmes, improve on obsolete and deteriorating facilities, and upgrade programmes, curricula and services. At the time of the proposal, the following table shows the enrollment and annual budget (2003): The concept of merging the institutions is similar to initiatives in other West Indian countries. Other examples include
Antigua State College, which resulted from the merger of a teachers' college and an already existing community college;
Dominica State College, the result of the merger of a
Sixth form college, a teachers' training college and a nursing institute; the
Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, which now incorporates the pre-existing teachers' college; among others. In fact, as a multi-disciplinary community college, the Barbados Community is unusual in not having developed from several predecessor institutions. However, the general election of 2008 led to a change in government. The merger was placed on a backburner while greater emphasis was placed on shared services among the three institutions. The project team was converted into the Higher Education Development Unit which was mandated to develop shared resources in the areas of accounting, student information system, library services, and online learning. ==GED Radio 106.1FM==