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Contact: Janelle Charles
Monday, March 25, 2002 - A national consultation on tertiary education
was held Tuesday to share with the public plans and proposals to further develop
post secondary education on the island. Principal of the Sir Arthur Lewis
Community College Dr. George Forde says the consultation looked specifically at
the cost of enhancing tertiary education.
“In the matter of tertiary education the question is probably more whether we
can afford not to do, rather than whether we can afford to do, because it is
absolutely certain that if we do not provide adequate human resource development
facilities for the people of this country that we are not going to be in the
runnings at all,” says Forde. The education official adds “It is very clear from
all the data, from all the evidence that we have, that it is only those
countries that have invested significantly in the development of human resources
that have increased and enhanced social and economic structures.”
Dr. Forde says there are two main issues with regard to financing territory
education; the first is efficient resource allocation and the second the
sourcing additional resources. He says additional resources could be obtained
from beneficiaries of post secondary education, through specific education taxes
or by fund raising through the College’s alumni among several others.
The Sir Arthur Lewis Community College is currently being restructured at both
the management and organisation levels with a view to ensuring that its funds
are effectively utilised. “We are also attempting to modify some of our
programmes. We would like to have a significant increase in the number of
Associate Degrees that we offer at the institution. We would also like to
concentrate on some critical areas, areas such as Information Technology,
Science, Criminal Justice, Creative Arts, Journalism and Media Studies. These
are the kinds of things that we would like to change somewhat. We would also
like to bring about a lot of changes with respect to the physical environment -
our computer labs, classroom space, staff space, and so on.” explains Forde.
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