C. Addressing Needs
- Increasing Access
- Access to Matriculation requirements
- Given our existing matriculation and
other entry requirements, and given the
secondary school system, it is necessary
to provide "access" courses of
various sorts. This has been done
successfully in the campus countries by
the SCS. This provision will be extended
throughout the NCCs by the SCS working in
conjunction, not in competition, with the
TLIs and other local providers.
- There is scope for a DE component in some
of this work. We have to recognize
different target audiences. For the
natural sciences, the audience is largely
secondary school students and those who
have recently left secondary school. For
such persons, the DEC intranet could
provide a feasible solution to their need
for expert tuition in the sciences and
mathematics. We have a small base in work
that has been done on the UWI Preliminary
Year, and on Internet versions of some
Physics courses. The SCS will sponsor a
project to extend this material, in
modularized form, to cover topics that
are reasonably frequent in the various
Associate Degrees in the region, in the
full 'A' level, in CAPE (if it survives),
and to offer joint programmes with these
TLIs and secondary schools.
- Closely related to this is the need for
strengthening mathematical and
statistical understanding among potential
and actual students. Here again, good DE
and Internet materials offer a
particularly helpful way of tapping
comparatively scarce pedagogical skills.
As these modules reach out to cover
material in various UWI courses,
extensive discussions will be needed to
promote rationalization of provision here
between the campuses and the DEC.
- English proficiency is in the same boat
as mathematical literacy. The welcome
decision to adopt DE for the new
Foundation Courses, including the
replacement for Use of English, provides
the DEC with an opportunity to
demonstrate the efficiencies to be found
in region-wide provision. The SCS should
quickly take the lead in promoting
remedial and preparatory DE courses
geared to this and the other Foundation
courses.
- The SCS intends to pay more attention to
providing a credit system of some sort
for its various offerings. An earlier
consultant had recommended that the
University examine the use of continuing
education units (CEUs) in the US as a
model for what the SCS might do. While
not intended as parallel to academic
credit, such a system will make it easier
for the University to weigh up SCS
courses for purposes of matriculation and
advanced standing.
- At some point, Strategy Committee,
informed by careful investigations by
BNCCDE and BUS, should be asked whether
we should move to more open entrance in
general. More urgently, consideration
will be given to spelling out more
clearly and reminding faculties of the
"mature" student entry route.
- Articulation with TLIs
- The number and variety of articulation
arrangements facilitated by the TLIU in
its brief history can fairly be said to
be one of the success stories of this
Board. We can confidently expect more of
these arrangements over the lifetime of
this plan. As the University becomes more
familiar with new developments in the
TLIs, we can look forward to initiatives
from the University, rather than simply
from the TLIs themselves. We can expect
this, not only from the faculties but
also from the SCS, as it reviews its
various offerings and seeks their wider
and more efficient delivery.
- So far, most agreements have been limited
to articulation and franchising.
Articulation permits the TLI to teach its
own programme, and seeks only to ensure
that it provides whatever may be needed
to continue work at the University.
Franchising is a matter of the TLI
teaching a University programme, with
considerable University monitoring and
control. With the new tourism programme,
the University has begun to work with
joint degrees. This may become a more
extensive practice and its potentialities
and also its problems should be a major
focus of research by the University in
the coming years.
- In the next few years we will begin to
consider how to move beyond franchising
to full divestment of some programmes.
This is one of the aims proposed by the
Strategic Plan. It will require attention
to institutional development (#6.3) and
the fuller implementation of
accreditation mechanisms throughout the
region (#6.8).
- Strengthening of TLIs
- Here we will work to extend the scope of
staff attachments, in both directions. We
propose to undertake a small number of
operations specifically targetted in the
light of articulation needs and
priorities for response to the NCCs.
Given the three campuses, it might then
be possible to target somewhere in Belize
to work mainly with Mona; SALCC/ASC with
Cave Hill; and another TLI to work mainly
with St Augustine. These operations will
require clear Memoranda of Agreement,
that others can adopt as they see them
working. Funding needs here will include:
travel, subsistence, replacement staff in
some cases. We need to find a way to
recognize input from the host
institution's staff.
- A second approach is through targetted
postgraduate programmes. There are
already plans for work with Teachers'
Colleges as an extension of the Mona
JBTE/Alberta project. The visiting teams
often heard of similar needs, in
agriculture and engineering, for example,
and also of various costly programmes
being mounted by North American
providers. We must explore non-standard
approaches: use of weekends, summer
schools, as well as the Internet for
delivery. The TLIU is working on a
detailed needs assessment of TLI staff,
upon which two or three specific projects
will be prepared for funding by CIDA or
other agencies. Given the generous
funding associated with the Lome IV
Cariforum project, we should consider a
special marketing campaign among TLIs for
the second intake.
- A further crucial aspect of institutional
development concerns library and
information resources. We touch upon
these in #9.
- Distance education
- Distance education remains perhaps the
major source of increased access to
programmes of all kinds. Start up costs
for a programme are very high, so
decisions must be carefully weighed, and
every effort be made not to under-utilize
material so, for instance, a text-book
preparation programme for ministry
officials should not remain a one-off
event - it can be repeated or modified to
fit developing circumstances.
- Current plans for programmes are: to
complete the BSc Management Studies
degree and the associated Agribusiness
degree; to start a Diploma in Engineering
Production Management; to provide the
Foundation courses for all degrees; to
offer a BEd in Educational
Administration; and to create programmes
in continuing medical education. Other
initiatives include work on various
courses in French language and literature
being sponsored in part by the French
government, and collaboration on the
Canadian funded Distance Education
scholarship programme which will offer
degrees in teacher education, information
technology, and hotel and tourism
management. At sub-degree level, the SCS
is entering the DE market with the
management of the Commonwealth Youth
Programme's diploma. This should be the
first of many programmes that the School
offers across the region, based on the
expertise it has gathered in different
places. This plan is itself proposing
several access courses in English and
mathematics for the SCS to take on.
- Our own programmes can build on the
Canadian material in the three areas
mentioned, rather as CEPAT adapted
courses from Wye. Other areas where needs
have been seen include other Social
Science programmes, both undergraduate
and MBA; broad humanities/social science
based degrees of a kind useful for school
teachers (work on which is progressing at
St Augustine); postgraduate programmes in
a number of areas (at least as a key
component, combined with summer courses,
or other intensive face-to-face
interaction); and various sub-degree
programmes for the SCS.
- Combining DE with TLI activity
- We must find a way for our expansion of
DE to harmonize with TLI articulation,
franchising, and divestment. One
immediate policy change would be to
include TLI staff as members of course
teams for DEC programmes. As such they
might be responsible for writing parts or
all of a particular course. Where the
course is already franchised to their
TLI, they could perform the functions of
course co-ordinator as well. The TLIs
should be invited to play a larger role
in the day-to-day management of DEC
programmes, identifying local tutors and
utilizing, where possible, their space
for tutorial sessions. Just as the DEC is
now providing funds for staffing and
other expenses at the University Centres,
so it would have to work out arrangements
with TLIs that choose to become more
involved in its work. If TLIs take this
up, it will help to free up time of the
Resident Tutors which is now preoccupied
with DEC matters.
- In seeing distance education activity as
faculty-driven, we are already trying to
conceptualise it as a matter of team work
rather than purely individual effort. The
effect of the present proposals is to
extend the membership of these teams to
include all the relevant scholars in the
region, not only those who happen to be
employed by the University.
- In working on articulation and
franchising we should always be open to
the possibility of including a small DE
element to allow coverage of what a TLI
cannot cover itself - cf. the proposed
intercampus use of DE to cover
specialisations. The arrangements
proposed for the H. Lavitty Stout
Community College's franchise of
education programmes, which include
courses offered by their own and UWI
on-campus staff, are suggestive of the
way we might go, mixing and matching
several modalities to permit NCC students
to receive a comprehensive programme as
easily as possible
- Mixed mode delivery must in fact become
the norm for the whole University,
on-campus as well as off. The decision to
offer the new Foundation courses in a DE
modality is welcome in this respect and
should be seen as the harbinger of things
to come.
- The NW Caribbean
- The four countries in this bloc are all
remarkably different; we cannot
generalise about their needs or our
response to them. While benefitting from
the CDB Loan Project, their involvement
in distance education will still not
match that of the other territories in
quality, and geographical considerations
argue against yet greater emphasis on
teleconferencing. Here, then, distance
education should emphasize print and
computer assisted pedagogy. Both Belize
and the Bahamas have degree-granting
institutions which properly aspire to
parity of esteem with the UWI. As yet,
they are limited in size and range of
programme. There is then scope for forms
of articulation and joint degrees. There
is also scope for interaction at
postgraduate level, both for TLI staff
development and for the development of
collaborative programmes. Roughly nine
times as many students from the Bahamas
go to North America as come to UWI (where
we had only 163 in 1997/98), so there is
a large potential market if it can be
tapped. In Belize and the Bahamas we
shall make special efforts to publicize
the University and to target potential
students - Resident Tutors, with
assistance perhaps from campus staff,
will be asked to work with the feeder
institutions that now mostly place their
brighter students in North American
institutions.
- In Cayman, we can perhaps hope mainly in
the development of articulation
arrangements with the local college. Both
there and in the Turks and Caicos
Islands, the DEC teleconferencing
facility is located in the local college,
so we have a chance to develop a
University presence as an integral part
of the local tertiary sector, as
envisaged in both the Appraisal and the
recent Governance reports, and as may
also happen in the British Virgin
Islands. In Turks, there is scope both
for articulation with the Community
College and for broad involvement in DE
programmes.
- Scholarships
- As with postgraduate and other special
awards (#5.1.2), one possibility is for
us to establish a quota system for its
open scholarships and bursaries,
reserving a certain percentage for
students from the NCCs. Taken together
with much more active proselytizing by
our Resident Tutors among the various
feeder institutions, and a review by the
Board for Undergraduate Studies of the
various matriculation arrangements that
are or ought to be in place, this should
lead to a greater number of the better
qualified NCC students coming to the
campuses.
- While restricted scholarships in general
create a complex array of awards open
only to special categories, it is likely
too that very little effort has ever been
made to seek sponsorship from businesses
in the NCCs for scholarships or bursaries
for NCC students. We will work to make
this become a part of regular
fund-raising activities in the region -
and beyond, if the UWI ever targets
international companies with extensive
interests in any of the NCCs.
- Accreditation issues: At the moment, efforts to
articulate with TLIs involve a considerable
investment in time and money on a case-by-case
basis. The visiting teams often heard of the
desirability of the successful implementation of
proposals within ACTI for general criteria for
different types of Associate Degree, and of a
mechanism that would permit any institution to
come to a relatively automatic decision on the
level and content of any particular qualification
awarded in the region. Several countries have or
have plans for national accreditation bodies that
will materially further the latter aim; CARICOM
is working on a regional umbrella mechanism. The
UWI has endorsed these moves and might offer to
house the regional entity, as a special
self-financing unit. Or it might find an
appropriate location in the ACTI secretariat
proposed above, since arguably the umbrella
organization should not focus on accreditation
itself but rather on the harmonizing of the
accreditation work performed by the various
national bodies.
- Access to the campuses
- It is has proposed that NCC students be
charged fees related to the marginal cost
of their presence on campus. In doing
this, the teams heard how
counterproductive it would be to continue
the marked differentials in fees between
faculties, which work against subjects we
are intending to promote (science,
including agriculture, and technology).
Marginal costs should therefore be
calculated on some other basis.
- It may be worth reiterating a
recommendation made at UAC to the
faculties, that they must begin to take
into account, in their thoughts regarding
campus needs, the various groups of
students taking parts of programmes or
articulated programmes in the TLIs or by
distance education. We expect a marked
increase in both these categories;
campuses already complain vociferously
about overcrowding; so we must act
swiftly to prepare for the more complex
future.
- Another issue raised during the visits
concerns the treatment of NCC students
who wish to live on-campus. Allocation of
scarce accommodation on hall should be
more sensitive to the needs of
non-nationals.
- Special issues related to postgraduate work
- It has been suggested that we should try
to establish some funds specifically
earmarked for postgraduate work in the
NCCs, scholarships or special grants.
Given what often seem to be urgent local
needs, perhaps one immediate aim for
fundraising should be for the local Guild
of Graduates to seek funding for an
annual postgraduate award.
- Faculties need to liaise much more
closely with relevant NGOs in the NCCs.
There are opportunities for students to
carry out research, to work on
attachments, to involve NGOs in mutually
beneficial research work, and to
collaborate with it in formulating
projects. Agriculture, environmental
studies, community development, community
health, cultural studies are only some of
the areas in which NGOs exist in the NCCs
and in which the UWI could participate.
- The Internet provides an ideal
environment for the dialogue between
student and supervisor that is critical
for postgraduate research. We must
impress on all faculties the need to
permit and encourage, through reliance on
e-mail, the registration of off-campus
research students.
- Law
- The UWI must take steps at the highest
levels to have the Council of Legal
Education revisit the quota system, in
particular in recognition of those
countries that are now allocated a
demonstrably inadequate number of places.
It must also seek a clear statement of
what the third Law School implies for the
quotas.
- The Faculty of Law should make proposals
on ways to franchise its programme to the
College of the Bahamas, and in principle
to other TLIs.
- Networking
- Resuscitation of the Guilds of Graduates: The 50th
Anniversary Celebrations have provided an ideal
opportunity to revive or to create Guilds of
Graduates. The University Centre should
facilitate them; the Resident Tutors will be
asked to include them high among their
priorities. We must set up immediately in the
Vice-Chancellery a desk responsible for the
sustenance of these Guilds. Its major aim should
be to maintain interest and commitment to the
University; it should not come across as first
and foremost a fund-raising entity. Part of the
funding for such a desk should be provision for
continuing, beyond the 50th
anniversary year, the regular sponsoring of guest
lectures in the NCCs.
- Graduates as mentors: The visiting teams heard
that NCC student associations at the campuses
often provide welcome support for new students. A
network of graduates in the NCC itself can help
even earlier in the process, by contacting
students who have been offered places, to
encourage and advise them. The Resident Tutor at
the University Centre and the local Guild should
aim to make the Centre into a show-case for the
campuses, involving students on vacation and
prospective students in their activities,
intellectual and social.
- Continuing education in the professional
Faculties/Schools: The faculties, in particular
the professional faculties and schools, already
provide a good deal of continuing education
throughout the region. While campuses and
Academic Boards are represented on the BNCCDE,
this does not really serve to facilitate
co-ordination of this outreach work. The SCS is
keen to extend its offerings, and this will
involve it too in much wider collaboration with
the faculties. The three Directors of the units
under the BNCCDE meet regularly with the PVC. We
propose that once a year such a meeting should be
held on each campus with the Deans and others
responsible for units with a considerable role in
outreach activities. Such meetings are clearly
required between consideration of this draft and
the formulation of operational plans; they should
continue, to maintain contact, set targets, and
monitor the implementation of the Plan.
- Honorary Associates: The suggestion for
identifying Honorary Associates has already been
endorsed by the University; work is under-way to
implement it. In our context, the importance of
such Associates is that they can serve as links
between the faculties and the NCC, reporting
needs and opportunities for training, research,
technical assistance, etc.
- Resident Tutors/Representatives as nodes in the
communication network
- It has been noted that the University
tends to remain in ignorance of NGOs; it
lacks in many cases informal links with
government departments, advisors and
planners; it tends to deal with TLIs
formally at a late stage in proceedings.
One of the key responsibilities of the
Resident Tutors should be to act as a
clearing-house for all kinds of
information that is relevant to different
parts of the University and conversely as
a channel for the University's contact
with these and other agents in the NCCs.
- The University for its part has been
asked to remember the Resident Tutor when
staff intend to visit an NCC. Conversely,
it is suggested that Resident Tutors
should aim to familiarise themselves with
key campus personnel when they visit a
campus so that they can convey
appropriate information to governments on
University capacity. More generally we
shall implement the suggestion that
orientations to the campuses be provided
for TLI and other persons; at Mona and St
Augustine the SCS is well placed to
organize such a service, at Cave Hill the
Office of the BNCCDE will undertake to do
so.
- University Presence
- What a university presence entails: A university
typically comprehends research, scholarship,
advanced level teaching and critical reflection
on the world around us. But there is much
besides. Advanced training in modern methods,
passing on the understanding that grounds them,
the cultivation and examination of many aspects
of human culture, lower-level introductory or
adjunct studies. Its range can be from the cradle
(as with our own RPCDC) to the grave. Depending
as they do on the other institutions in a
particular society, these lower reaches are a
contingent matter. We have a responsibility to
the governments and peoples that fund us to be
ever conscious of the shifting terrain upon which
we find ourselves. We need to be responsive to
changes in the educational environment,
recognising that we are a comparatively expensive
provider of services, and that in many of these
"lower" reaches our proper task is to
initiate, identify needs for attention, arrange
for UWI expertise to be applied, develop local
resources, and move on.
- The Future of the University Centres
- As a result of a complex history, the NCC
University Centres are at the
intersection of several paths. They were
originally the home of external and
extension studies. With the creation and
expansion of the Challenge programme and
soon after the UWIDITE distance education
programmes, they became the local home of
these regular programmes offered at a
distance. The Resident Tutor has always
been called upon to represent the
University in a variety of roles, acting
on behalf of many different university
agencies. With the franchising of
programmes to some TLIs, the RT and the
Centre have become a crucial link in that
process, responsible for the conduct of
examinations, and in general serving as a
post-box between the TLI and the campus.
At the same time that these various jobs
were thrust upon them, the local
situation has itself been changing.
Post-secondary provision has expanded in
all the NCCs, the resulting TLIs have
often moved towards University-level
work, and have sometimes been directly
franchised to offer it. Schools and TLIs
have increasingly tapped a local market
for access courses, and other forms of
continuing education and training.
Extra-regional providers have appeared in
increasing numbers and in various guises:
distance education; off-shore schools;
easily accessible programmes.
- Very little of all this has been planned.
Comparatively little close collaboration
exists among the various players. In
almost all cases, these players are
physically distinct from each other,
although there is often sharing of some
facilities (library materials as in St
Lucia or the Bahamas, or space as in
Dominica, for instance).
- Since our overriding aim is to bring the
benefits of a university to the NCCs,
through greater representation of its
students in our programmes, and through
greater visibility and impact in the NCCs
themselves, it behoves us to consider
how, in each country, the various players
should best collaborate, given that most
of them will have their own aims in
addition and possibly in conflict with
ours. The logic of the position the
University has endorsed would seem to
have these consequences: (a) the UWI
should expect a role at the higher levels
of education and training, but (b) it
should equally expect and promote the
divestment of lower levels to local
agencies as these become able and willing
to undertake them. Simply put, it should
do what only a university can do,
including the pioneering of new
programmes which others can adopt or
adapt, and should leave the field to
others to do what they can perfectly well
do on their own. What this amounts to in
any particular case will be a matter of
changing historical circumstance, but
this is what our goal commits us to.
- In the shorter time span of this Plan, we
cannot expect radical change. Independent
institutions exist and are not going to
make themselves disappear overnight.
People with specific skills and
experience fill positions, and similarly
are not going to disappear. The
requirements of various University
programmes are not going to alter
radically in our time-frame. What we can
anticipate is a sharpening of activity
and greater differentiation: the Centres
will remain sites for DE University
programmes, but the TLIs may take over
more responsibility for running them (v.
#6.5); they will offer more programmes of
their own, both DE and face-to-face, for
access and for continuing education, in
which the varied skills of the SCS (and
related units on the campuses) are
focussed and made available across the
region; growing articulation with TLIs
will inevitably result in smoother links
between the TLI and the campuses so that
the Centre's role in managing the
relationship should be correspondingly
reduced. For instance, many examination
responsibilities can be shared with the
TLIs. The recommendations we make to
bring university activity to the NCCs and
to provide the campuses with regular
feedback will, if successful, provide a
different and more satisfying channel of
communication between the Centres and the
TLIs.
- An Open College?: The crucial idea here,
suggested by the Educational Planner for Distance
Education in his final report, is implicit in
existing plans for the SCS. Given that the SCS
intends to consider the range of access and
sub-degree needs throughout the region, and
contract with the DEC to provide a DE approach to
at least some of them, it will have to
collaborate with TLIs and other training agencies
and in effect bring them into a partnership for
DE work of this kind. The University's faculties
are not themselves geared to cater for all areas
of need and it would be wastefully expensive for
them to attend to training needs that can be
adequately served by national colleges. To this
end, appointments will be needed in specific
disciplinary areas (an extension of the present
SCS staff tutors) with a mandate to collaborate
with the relevant faculties and with all other
agencies with a stake in the particular
discipline.
- Scholars/Artists in residence: This project has
already been proposed and endorsed. In the
present context, we will recommend that some
appointments be targetted to supplement other
recommendations, e.g. attachments in Belize.
- Country Conferences
- The SCS has begun plans for organising a
series of NCC Country Conferences which
will bring scholars from the NCC, the UWI
and elsewhere to concentrate attention on
issues of current salience to the
particular country. Through the
publication of these symposia, a series
of scholarly resources focussing on the
NCCs will be built up.
- The campuses organize a fair number of
conferences, workshops, and symposia.
While it is obviously more convenient and
cheaper for them to organize these events
either on campus or in close proximity,
we ought to encourage (through the
provision of special funds) some of these
meetings to be held at a distance from
the campuses, and in particular at NCC
locations. It is quite likely that the
relevant NCC ministry might welcome the
opportunity to co-host such an event.
- Documentation of the NCCs
- One of the reasons for establishing the
UWI Press was to provide scholarly
documentation of the countries that
support the University. The Press should
seek to sponsor series of studies of the
NCCs devoted to their history, culture,
linguistic situation, biological and
physical environment, etc.
- An increasingly important scholarly and
public resource is the Internet. The
University Centres should aim to host
websites that provide wide and thorough
documentation of their particular
country, archiving significant historical
documents, local and sadly often
ephemeral literature and other cultural
productions, etc. etc. It is proposed to
create a number of exemplary sites during
the duration of the plan.
9. Libraries/Information
- Virtual worlds
- If we aim to make a course available across the
region, we now have three campuses plus 28
teleconference centres for teaching. If a book is
required for a DE course, this means we should at
least provide about 30 copies of it. A degree
programme has 30 courses. With only one crucial
book per course that gives us 900 books. The
argument is meant to show that the only feasible
way to provide our scattered students with the
readings they should have access to is through
"virtual libraries". The Lome IV
Cariforum Project will give us a beginning here.
We will ask the University to undertake a
complete review of its funding of the Libraries
in the context of wholesale digitization of
holdings, subscription to electronic texts, etc.
- We will explore possibilities of collaborating in
similar schemes elsewhere (the Florida network is
an obvious choice).
- At a more traditional level, and as an aspect of
the greater symbiosis between the University
Centres and the local TLIs envisaged in this
plan, we recommend that comprehensive plans be
drawn up in each NCC to co-ordinate library
developments and holdings.
- It should be remarked that the University has
recently agreed that the University Librarian has
overall responsibility for libraries in the
University Centres, and thus for helping to
address the training needs that exist in them.
Here again, it would be advantageous to
co-ordinate efforts with those for the TLIs and
other library services.
10. Research in the NCCs
- Graduate students in residence: The recommendation here
is to do something similar for postgraduate students
working in an NCC as we are proposing to do for scholars
or artists in residence. Provide them with some token
assistance and space at the University Centre; publicize
their work; facilitate their dealings with officials.
Again there is scope for greater collaboration with TLIs,
e.g. in access to laboratories and through conducting
seminars or other educational activity.
- Collaborative projects with TLIs and NGOs
- We have noted already the UWI's comparative
inattention to research opportunities provided by
NGOs. There are a number of research facilities
throughout the region, agricultural stations and
laboratories, and there are a number of
individuals, in TLIs, offshore institutions, and
government employment who could be encouraged to
participate in various sorts of research.
- To the extent that we can involve TLI staff in DE
course teams, there will often be opportunities
for small-scale local research that can provide
local illustrative material for the resulting
courses. This last may not be research of the
kind agencies wish to fund, but its promotion is
important both for regional self-understanding
and for encouraging a culture of enquiry. We will
continue to urge the Board for Undergraduate
Studies to attend to its mandate to preserve and
strengthen regionality within our teaching
programmes.
- Incentives to include NCCs in research: The suggestion
has already been made that we should find ways to
encourage NCC involvement in research projects. So, for
example, the criteria for the award of internally
available research grants could give extra points for
comparative studies involving an NCC, where appropriate.
11. Technical Assistance
- Dialogue: Funding that provides technical assistance to
governments often comes with many strings attached. But
where it is possible for it to be used on local UWI
resources, a major problem is mutual ignorance.
Governments or the private sector do not know what
expertise we have; we do not know what it is they need
assistance with. We have recommended that Resident Tutors
give high priority to acting as go-betweens in this
matter. The Office of the Board can serve as one of their
first links at the University end, and to do so it should
maintain contact with the faculties and the campus
business offices which are charged with facilitating
institutional consultancies. We will ask faculties to
provide a register of projects and capacity; the Board
will regularly pass information on to governments.
12. Physical Plant
- Upgrading: The Director, SCS, is working on a
comprehensive set of proposals concerning the upgrading
of existing Centres. As noted above, in many cases there
seems a need for extra accommodation to handle the
increasing local tutoring required by the expanded DEC
operation. Given the timing associated with most DEC
work, it ought in some cases to be possible to negotiate
space sharing arrangements with local TLIs, schools, and
other facilities. These would flow naturally from the
greater collaboration envisaged in this plan between the
work of the University Centres and local stake-holders.
- Policy on new locations: It has already been agreed to
proceed to the creation of a physical University presence
in those territories that have until now lacked one. But
the University has not yet decided upon a formal policy
for extra locations that arguably are needed, as in say
Belize or Turks and Caicos, although the Board has
already endorsed a proposal to set up a teleconferencing
facility in Nevis. Its position and practice has been
that it will support locally financed initiatives, as in
Tobago or at several sites in Jamaica. These sites, as
also the proposed one in Nevis, are geared only to
distance education, and in particular the
teleconferencing arm of that modality. In the short-term
this certainly provides increased access and signals our
regional commitment in the locality. Looking to the
medium term we will need to reconsider our priorities.
The DEC's emphasis, in distance education, is moving away
from teleconferencing towards print, and now more
recently towards computers. Both these media give much
greater freedom to students to decide when and where to
study. To the extent that they can become central to
distance education provision, and to the extent that
major outreach programmes can be offered in that
modality, we ought not to need a plethora of
teleconferencing sites. Until such time as we can expect
students to have their own home computer on the Internet,
we would need locations where students can have access to
computers linked to the DEC network. It may also be noted
that in the Bahamas the College of the Bahamas is
expected to be running a distance education network
linking several Bahamian islands. It ought to be possible
to link up to this network for particular programmes.
13. Mechanisms for Dialogue
- An Ambassador for the UWI: The terms of reference for the
PVC NCC/DE include the role of representative of the
University to regional bodies such as CARICOM, OECS, and
their sub-committees. To date, little has been achieved
here. It is important for this plan that the Board's
chairman play a more visible role in the deliberations of
such bodies.
- A virtual desk at CARICOM: While interaction at the
highest levels is essential, it is equally important to
maintain contact and exchange ideas at other levels.
Electronic communication provides an easy way to bring
this about; the Office of the Board must work speedily to
get into the loop at all stages of the planning of
tertiary education matters, HRD, or research in the
region.
- Electronic communication elsewhere: CARICOM is not the
only entity with which the University needs regular
informal links. As Dr Forde of SALCC suggested, the TLIs
and the University should be in regular touch with each
other, perhaps through a listserv or electronic mailing
list. The DEC is acquiring the technical expertise
required to set up such systems, so we could reasonably
hope to create one before the end of the calendar year.
It is essential for this that all the TLIs with which we
are working should have e-mail and Internet connectivity.
Again, a similar suggestion was made by the NRDF in St
Lucia for a facility to exchange news and views on
development issues.
- Publicity, marketing, public relations: A continual
refrain in the visits to the NCCs concerned the
difficulty of communicating with the University, of
getting through on the phone, of discovering to whom one
should be talking, of getting information accurately or
in timely fashion, of receiving the impression that the
University wanted to deal with you. Our advertisements
belong in an official gazette rather than a 20th
century newspaper. Our invitation to prospective students
comes often too late and is largely a long list of monies
that must be paid. One could go on. We have committed
ourselves to self-improvement, and have begun to take
action. We need only now remind ourselves how much more
is still to be done, and to encourage yet speedier
action.
Go to Background
Present situation and constraints
Country and faculty breakdown of
proposals
Return to Home page.
Prepared June 4th, 1998.
URL
http://www.uwichill.edu.bb/bnccde/docs/sponc.html
© University of the West Indies