MGJR Volume 1 2013 | Page 29

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - The University of the West Indies (UWI) is the largest and oldest University in the English-speaking Caribbean. It started in Jamaica in 1948 as a Campus of the University of London, with 33 medical students and now operates in 16 Caribbean islands with a student population exceeding 47,000. 

Its graduates comprise 18 current and former Heads of State, Nobel Prize winners, numerous Rhodes Scholars, CEOs, cultural icons, private industry leaders and many others numbering well over 100,000 across the Caribbean region and the world.

The UWI’s mission is: “To advance education and create knowledge through excellence in teaching, research, innovation, public service, intellectual leadership and outreach in order to support the inclusive (social, economic, political, cultural, environmental) development of the Caribbean region and beyond.”

A critical driver of this rapid expansion in reach and impact across the Caribbean has been the use of technology. With a regional mandate set by the 16 governments that support the UWI, it has always used technology as a core driver for quantitative and qualitative impact.

In fact, the advanced use of technology has permeated all aspects of operations at the UWI. The university’s most recent strategic plan adopted the Balanced Scorecard system as a means of streamlining processes and systems for greater regional coordination across all campuses with the expectation that this will result in an enhanced impact on national and regional development.

As a result, the university has identified six different “perspectives’’ from which it views its operations:

• Financial

• Employee Engagement and Development

• Internal Operations

• Teaching, Learning and Student Development

• Research

• Innovation and Outreach

For the past 60 years, the UWI has made considerable gains in achieving its mandate to act as an engine of development for the English speaking Caribbean. Critical to this journey has been a consistent expansion of its reach and impact.

The university is currently organized into a four-campus system, which operates from 16 Caribbean islands, offering blended learning opportunities to students from small islands with limited access to options for tertiary training.

 

Each perspective has a number of ‘themes’ that encapsulate various projects and programs designed to produce a numerous outcomes.

 

For a university that is spread geographically across the Caribbean Sea, this is critical. For many years the region was plagued with a monopoly in its telecom infrastructure which forced high telecom and connectivity costs. The UWI was forced therefore to attempt many different approaches to satisfy its

Modernization of Caribbean Higher Education

Holds Promise for Societal Transformation

g Sharan Singh and Shiraz Mohammed

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The University of the West Indies’ ‘open campus’ offers learning opportunities to students from small islands with limited access to options for traditional higher education.