Dr Wheatley made the promise while appearing on the governing Virgin Islands Party’s (VIP) Let’s Talk radio show earlier this week.

His promise came in response to an appeal by a caller who said it has been some 22 years since a comprehensive and scientific review of the BVI’s education has taken place.

“This education review, as we have seen in the past, helps to tell us what the problems are, what we should do and so forth,” the caller said.

Dr Wheatley said the previous education review was done by Premier Andrew Fahie when he served in the role of Education Minister in a previous incarnation of the VIP administration just after the 1999 elections.

Scholarship program revamp

Meanwhile, Dr Wheatley said the government has also been revising its scholarship policy, noting that there will be a mechanism in place for persons to give their views on how the policy is being formed.

“We want feedback on this policy, we’re doing interesting things with the policy. [For example], ee proposed an increase in the amount of the scholarship, from $18,000 to $20,000,” Dr Wheatley said.

He also noted that there have been adjustments to the distance education aspect of the policy since there had been issues with this area in the past.

“Scholarships has been a real point of focus for this administration since coming into office. We started the Scholarship Abroad programme which was shut down for a few years after hurricanes Irma and Maria. We, as an administration, knew what kind of challenges it would cause to the people of the Virgin Islands if we did not start that back right away,” Dr Wheatley continued.

He said the actual number of scholarships that are normally given out has also been increased and these are in addition to the significant amount of grants that the government has disbursed during its tenure.

“When you see the statistics in terms of how many persons we’ve helped with school, it will certainly astound you and we are going to be presenting those statistics for you shortly as we’ll give a report on the Scholarship Abroad programme which has been restarted for a few years now,” the Education Minister said.