President issues call for change in Regional tertiary education

Aug 03, 2015 News

– during launch of UWI St. Augustine campus

President David Granger has called for higher education in the Caribbean to be reconfigured to support greater innovativeness in areas of architecture, agriculture, culture, manufacturing, medicine, engineering, the sciences and business.
The President made this call during an address at the launching of the University of the West Indies South campus of St. Augustine, Penal- Debe, Trinidad and Tobago,
Present among the gathering at the ceremonial topping-off and deed handover ceremony of the new state-of-the-art campus were Trinidad’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Energy and Energy Affairs Minister Kevin Ramnarine, and Planning and Sustainable Development Minister Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie.
“Higher education in the Caribbean must be reconfigured to support greater innovativeness in architecture, agriculture, culture, manufacturing, medicine, engineering, the sciences and business. Higher education should contribute to the competitiveness of our enterprises and make the Caribbean a zone of prosperity.” Granger stated.
The president, himself a historian, stated that education was previously used to preserve the elite class, but in the contemporary Caribbean, “education is the vehicle to achieve the good life.”

President David Granger

“Higher education in the Caribbean,” Granger stated, “functions best when inequality is removed, when access is improved, and when an increasing number of persons can be better prepared to be citizens of the 21st century society.”
He also established three points where the role of higher education was clear in nation building.
“First, to help to build an economy that is more resilient than the one we inherited from the planters and landlords of the old mercantile system. We have to build one that can compete with the eagles of the West and the tigers of the East.”
”Second, to build more cohesive societies in which the people are educated to suppress their outdated social and class differences and pretences. Our societies must eliminate inequalities and eradicate extreme poverty.”
“Third, to build a more inclusive political system where, by and large, people can be empowered to participate fully in local and national democratic organs and can feel confident in their elected representatives.”
Granger also referred to what he called the “four horsemen of the Guyana apocalypse: crime, disease, ignorance and poverty.”
“Higher education has a pivotal role in unshackling us from these four horsemen and in opening opportunities to access the good life. Investments in education therefore are investments in the good life.”
The UWI St. Augustine South Campus is approximately 40.5 hectares (100 acres), and is located in the vicinity of the Debe High School. The lands are part of the rolling Greenfield, a site previously cultivated with sugar cane. It is bound on the east by the San Fernando/Siparia/Erin Road, on the west by Papourie Road and on the south by the M2 Ring Road.
The cost of the construction for the campus totaled $499 million which was on budget but the completion of construction, “was not on time”. The campus is expected to have its first intake in January 2016.