UWI expands its reach

I was quite intrigued by an article in the Kaiteur News that highlighted the 38th Annual Conference of the Caribbean Public Services Association (CPSA) that was held in Dominica on July 19th. The article was captioned “High Cost of Living, Good governance raised at Public Service Confab.” It was based on a Press Conference held by the Association that pointed to some of the issues that were of concern to members.{{more}} Among their concerns, through the passage of a resolution, they requested CARICOM governments to ‘withhold signing of the EPA agreement and seek to re-negotiate terms that will be beneficial to the region.’ What caught my attention, however, was a statement about University education. It read as follows; “Full access to the UWI was the concern of island nations like St.Vincent and the Grenadines and St.Lucia. The representatives of these nations expressed their concern that they do not benefit from all the programmes offered by the UWI. Following this, a resolution was unanimously passed, insisting that the governments of the non-campus countries mandate the UWI to provide all programmes offered at UWI to those non-campus countries.”

It was not clear to me what was meant by the statement that they do not benefit from all the programmes offered by the UWI. But then the resolution that was passed put a different light on the matter. The resolution asked that all programmes offered at UWI be provided to the non-campus countries. It was probably the wording of the resolution that has led to some confusion, at least to my mind. If we take for example just one campus, that at Mona in Jamaica we would see that the Faculty of Humanities and Education includes Library and Information Studies, Educational Studies, Geography and Geology, History and Archaeology, Literatures in English, Mathematics and Computer Science, Modern Languages and Literatures, among others. The Faculty of Social Sciences has the Departments of Economics, Government, Management Studies, Sociology, Psychology and Social work and the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, the Department of Chemistry, the Centre for Marine Studies, Departments of Geography and Geology, Life Sciences, Maths and Computer Sciences and Physics. Then there are the Medical Sciences, including the School of Nursing. There are a host of other programme offerings at UWI, including Law and Engineering.

Could UWI offer all programmes in the non-campus countries? The framers of the resolution were clearly out of touch with recent developments at the University. For one, the nomenclature ‘non-campus’ no longer exists, for the simple reason that in July at the Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua the University of the West Indies Open Campus was officially launched. This new campus, a virtual campus, serves specifically the former non-campus countries and the underserved areas of the campus countries. In making the announcement at a Press Conference, Vice Chancellor, Professor E. Nigel Harris, stated as follows: “This entity is designed to capitalise on advances in online technologies and on the platform of over 50 sites… to advance a more student-friendly, much broader basket of degree, diploma and certificate programmes for Caribbean people who live beyond the immediate vicinity of our established campuses…For more than two years, we have been offering nursing degree programmes, bachelor’s in education programmes and other courses designed to enhance the opportunities of the working public to uplift themselves educationally, without necessarily enrolling on one of the three (established) campuses of the University.”

In the e-newsletter of the Open Campus, an article published by Dr. Lennox Bernard of Trinidad and Tobago in Newsday was reproduced. Dr. Bernard wrote; “The Open Campus, with its mission to expand the scope, enhance the appeal and improve the efficiency of UWI’s service to individuals, communities and countries which it serves, is poised to make the difference. The main target clientele of the Open Campus will be persons whose circumstances or location do not allow them to benefit from the formal structures of existing campuses as well as new collectives in other Caribbean states and in other countries. There are many areas of study that will be offered through the Open Campus through face to face, blended (face to face) and online delivery facilities. These include pre-university education courses, certificate, diploma and undergraduate programmes and courses, post-graduate degree programmes, distance education courses, extension courses, technical and vocational courses and other lifelong learning activities. (see Occasional Paper 1, the UWI Open Campus, January 2008).

The UWI Open Campus is really an answer to the concern and request of the public servants meeting in Dominica, even though it was well on its way before that call was made. In fact the Open Campus was one of the outcomes of the UWI Strategic Plan 2007- 2012. It was designed to expand the reach of the University to areas and communities that had been underserved by that institution. This includes sections in those countries with established campuses. Despite the presence of two universities in Trinidad and Tobago, the School of Continuing Studies which, like the schools in the other islands, is now part of the Open Campus has a student enrolment higher than the population of Anguilla. It is also recognised that apart from the issue of finances, many people are unable to take up opportunities to study at one of the UWI campuses because of family and work commitments. The virtual campus with its online programmes will bring the University to Caribbean people wherever they are. This applies even to those in the Diaspora for already there have been enquiries by Caribbean people outside the Caribbean interested in taking courses through the Open Campus.

The University of the West Indies, despite having three campuses, was unable to meet the demand for University education in the region. The Open Campus has allowed it to extend its reach and to better serve the communities by utilising existing technologies. This will not guarantee access to all programmes offered by the University but it would begin to meet a large part of the demand and, of course, the Open Campus will provision itself to continue to respond to the needs of the communities that they serve.

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.