UWI Vice Chancellor Says Successive Saint Lucian governments have rejected offer to work with SALCC

[dropcap]F[/dropcap][dropcap][/dropcap]or each academic year the University of the West Indies (UWI) releases the Vice Chancellor’s Report, which provides insight into the various undertakings of the institution. Statistics show that over the last decade the majority of students who enroll at the university originate from Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados, while OECS member countries continually contribute the least amount of students.

For the years 2012-2016, total enrollment figures stood at 50,439, 52,032, 52,031, 49,064 and 49,092 respectively. The OECS accounted for 3.1%, 2.9%, 2.7%, 7.4% and 8.3% of corresponding enrollment. In 2017 student enrollment was 49,162 with forty per cent of the students originating from Trinidad & Tobago, 36.5% from Jamaica, 9.8% from Barbados, 8.6% from the OECS, and the remainder from other countries.

“The university has every reason to be concerned about the circumstance in the OECS,” said Sir Hilary Beckles, UWI’s Vice Chancellor. “The OECS countries are founding members of UWI and, as founding members, any area where there is a perception that much more work needs to be done becomes a top priority.”

In an attempt to increase the number of students from the OECS, Professor Beckles said the university had in the past reached out to all OECS member countries. “We came up with a model where we work with governments to develop community colleges into university colleges, so we can deliver a large number of UWI programmes.

“We have been trying to persuade governments in Saint Lucia for 20 years to let us develop the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College into a university college, where we can build capacity for young Saint Lucians. . . It hasn’t happened, and we are disappointed. . . I have made three visits to the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in the last five years to discuss this matter. I think there is a concern that a national institution will somehow be subsumed under a regional institution. We spent so much time trying to explain that would not happen.”

Professor Beckles revealed that he last met with the SALCC’s board of governors and the principal last year, when he took the opportunity to explain that if the offer was accepted, Saint Lucia would not lose control of the institution.

“Would it mean that UWI would run the college? We said no. Does it mean we would identify and select who the principal would be? We said no. Would we be dominant on the board to shape its policies? We said no.”

After the offer was turned down, the government of sister islands Antigua and Barbuda stepped up and agreed to work with the UWI. Said Beckles: “They said, “Not only do we want to be a university college, we’re going to pull all of our community colleges together into one and make that one college a university, and grow it into a campus of UWI.’ ”

The UWI currently operates campuses in Mona, Jamaica; Cave Hill, Barbados; and St. Augustine, Trinidad. The new campus earmarked for Antigua may open as soon as next year.

“The offer that Sir Arthur Lewis Community College rejected has been accepted by all of the teacher colleges in Jamaica. We now have Anguilla that has accepted the offer, and a lot of other colleges in the region.”

The Vice Chancellor says UWI has not given up and he hopes that the conversation with SALCC can continue.