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<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #CC0000"><span style="font-size: 17pt">EDITORIAL - Merge UWI and UTech</span></span></span>
Published: Thursday | December 11, 2008
Carroll Edwards, in her gracious response for the University of the West Indies (UWI) to our suggestions for the rebalancing of Jamaican Government subsidies between various faculties at UWI, declared its willingness to engage "in a much-needed public debate on the importance of university education" to the island's development.
We would have expected no less from a venerable institution, whose contribution to the advancement of the Caribbean is unimpeachable and which this newspaper holds in high esteem.
Any such debate, we believe, and assume to be the position of those who shape minds at UWI, must be beyond the specific confines of that university. It would include a broader discourse on how <span style="font-weight: bold">Jamaica can most efficiently deploy its investment
in education.</span>
Rationalisation
In that context, the rationalisation of public or state-financed universities, including the efficacy of Jamaica maintaining UWI and the University of Technology (UTech) as separate and distinct institutions, must be on the agenda.
Indeed, the basic thesis of our recent leaders on the matter, is that the <span style="font-weight: bold">UWI is producing a dearth of graduates in disciplines such as engineering, agriculture and related skills</span>, while disgorging an abundance of people with degrees in the social sciences and the humanities. For example, of the 3,276 Jamaicans who graduated from UWI last year, 75 per cent of them were in the humanities or social sciences.
<span style="font-weight: bold">A mere 28 Jamaican students graduated as engineers and only an embarrassing five students received degrees in agriculture</span>. Assumptions about job prospects as matriculation requirements may have contributed to low enrolment in these faculties, as well as the cost of studying in Trinidad where these faculties are located, perhaps contribute to low enrolment in these disciplines. All these points we believe are relevant, but the latter one, as appeared to be the position of Mrs Edwards, ought not be dismissed or glossed over.
Modern competitive economy
But whatever the constraints, it is clear that <span style="font-weight: bold">Jamaica cannot build a modern competitive economy in this global world in the absence of a workforce that is skilled and technologically savvy </span>- a fact recognised by Jamaican policymakers a half century ago when they created the College of Arts Science and Technology (CAST), which is now UTech.
<span style="font-weight: bold">CAST had a proud history of producing gra-duates with technical skills</span>, but it seems that, as UTech, it is losing its focus. Of the just over 9,000 students enrolled at UTech last year, approximately 11 per cent were in engineering, many multiples more than was the case at the UWI. However, nearly four out of every 10 UTech students were studying business administration.
<span style="font-weight: bold">The opportunity, it seems, exists for the emergence of UTech as a semi-autonomous school in the UWI system - aligned to the Mona campus - focusing on the development of science and technology skills</span>. Some of the subsidies to the social sciences and humanities faculties at the UWI would be rebalanced in favour of engineering and technical students at UTech.
We believe that this would not only provide enhanced educational outcomes, but a more efficient use of the $9 billion - 84 per cent to UWI - which the Government has allocated to the UWI this fiscal year. At present, for instance, these relatively small institutions maintain separate bureaucracies, which would now be merged and pared down. The UWI, formally, is a regional rather than a Jamaican institution, but that would be of little hindrance to the merger. Already, the three main campuses operating almost as autonomous national institutions since the mid-1980s.
<span style="font-style: italic">The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: [email protected] or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.</span>