1

Higher Education at the Intersection of Nationalism, Regionalism, and Globalisation in the English-Speaking Caribbean Kristjan Sigurdson Master of Arts candidate Higher Education Program Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Term Paper for: Systems of Higher Education, Dr. Glen Jones

2 The English-speaking Caribbean, also known as the West Indies, is a group of eleven small former British colonies turned sovereign states1 and five even smaller dependencies2 that remain under British control. With a combined population of just over six and a half million spread across numerous islands and two coastal states, even as a group, the West Indies is miniature in comparison to most of the neighbouring countries in Central, South and North America. Relatively low to medium levels of economic development are characteristic of most West Indian states. Aside from sharing a common colonial past, these countries have strong ideological, cultural and organizational connections that unite them (Bolland, 2004). In the case of higher education and the development of human resources, the region has traditionally depended primarily on one major university, the University of the West Indies (UWI) (Nettleford, 2009), which serves the 16 contributing countries and dependencies of the West Indies. Today, along with the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), and the West Indies Cricket Team, it is considered one of the principal organizational connections that bind the region together (Bolland, 2004). UWI is more than a university, it is a regionally binding institution and one on which much of the economic and cultural future of the West Indies rests. This paper is an analysis of the major factors that have led to the establishment of UWI, one of only a handful of regional universities in the world, and many of the issues that have made evolution unique and its role for the regions Sovereign West Indian states include: Jamaica; Trinidad and Tobago; Barbados; Antigua and Barbuda; The Bahamas; Belize; Dominica; Grenada; St. Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. 2 British dependencies include: Anguilla; The British Virgin Islands; The Cayman Islands; Montserrat; and Turks and Caicos.
1

3 future important. First, detailed descriptions of the context in which UWI was created, and the conditions under which it crystalized, as the regions university in its earliest years will be provided, as these are important to understand the functioning the institution today. This will be followed by a more brief assessment of some of the major challenges and transformations experienced by the institution up to the present, including the development of its distance education programmes now under the umbrella of the UWI Open Campus. Finally, the threats and opportunities posed by the globalising forces of market liberalization and advancements to information and communication technology will be assessed.

West Indian History From Colonies to Countries In the English-speaking Caribbean, higher education has evolved in the context of a unique colonial and post-colonial history experienced by the countries of the region. While these countries have often developed along their own unique trajectories, they have also been marked by common influences. The deepest and most fundamental commonality of the West Indies is its history of colonization and slavery-based economies brought to the region by Great Britain between the 16th and 19th centuries. According to Bolland (2004), while each country experienced a unique version of colonization, each experience can nonetheless be posited on a multidimensional continuum with the following interrelated features: The arrival of the British in these territories resulted in a rapid extirpation of the regions indigenous inhabitants which required a massive repopulation of mostly African slaves; this violent and coerced demographic transformation was required by the

4 prevalence of the plantation system of production used to export sugar, coffee and other products to Europe and elsewhere; the colonial plantation model created particularly homogenous economies based on a similar agricultural enterprise and also a bipolar social structure; this led to societies that even after emancipation could be characterized by the cultural dominance of a few over the many, weak national identities and a lasting struggle between the elite and the dissatisfied peasants. Emancipation ended formal slavery in the West Indies in the 1830s, however the structural, economic dependence on this mode of production and the products it created for export often led to forms of labour not far removed from the slavery that had supposedly been supplanted (Knight, 1990). The post-emancipation period and its persistent labour shortages also led to a massive influx of non-African foreigners to the West Indies who were imported to work on plantations. Between 1838 and 1917, almost 500,000 East Indians immigrated to different territories of the Caribbean, with nearly half of moving to Guyana alone (Sherlock, 1966), as well as tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants (Knight, 1990). Thus, by the 1920s the Caribbean had begun to take on a character of incredible racial, ethnic and religious diversity due to these influxes of foreign peoples, but also of massive inequality and social strife. By the 1940s, processes of de-colonization began to take root in most of the West Indian countries. Macpherson (2011) contends that labour movements and long-growing anti-British identities were among the strongest antecedents to decolonization, but that the British also helped by failing to adequately fund their

5 decolonization forestalling strategies or to hammer out contradictions in their efforts on this front. Among other things, Britain had made little concerted effort to promote economic diversification, labour and voting rights or social security in the West Indian colonies and this led to there being little incentive for the colonies to remain committed to the colonial relationship (Macpherson, 2011). By the late 1940s, Britain was emerging in tatters from the devastation of the Second World War and contending with a host of problems and difficult questions of priority left in its wake. As such, it was either not willing or not able to give the West Indian people the attention or focus necessary to keep them interested in remaining in the colonial fold. At the same time, dissatisfied West Indian workers, likely emboldened by a perceived British nonchalance began on a road towards radicalization that would eventually lead to independence. Macpherson (2011) argues that between the 1940s and 1960s, Britain had actually become receptive towards decolonization in many of its West Indian territories. Owing to British success in the preceding two decades in training emerging political elites and national electorates in moderate Westminster-style politics and capitalist economic policies (Macpherson, 2011, p.485) the risk of radicalization and forms of independence that might be most destructive to British interest was apparently reduced. And so beginning in the early 1960s, a wave of countries began achieving national independence. The first West Indian countries to become independent were Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago in 1962, followed by Barbados and Guyana in 1966, the Bahamas in 1973 and finally

6 Belize and the small eastern Caribbean islands in the early 1980s (Macpherson, 2011).

The Roots of West Indian Education West Indian countries, while taking an inheritance of British modes of governance and styles of leadership, also took ownership of a decidedly inadequate education system. In the slave society that endured in British West Indian colonies into the 1830s, education had been reserved for children of the planter class (Jules, 2010). Documents of the period indicate that to educate children of the lower classes was expressly opposed because receiving an education would make the children of slaves unfit for the role in life that was necessary of them (Jules, 2010). Even in the post-emancipation period, public education was restricted to the elite, and only with the attainment of universal adult suffrage in most West Indian countries between 1944 and 1954, did demands for mass education find their place on local political agendas (Buddan, 2004). Obtaining the right to vote was not only an important democratic achievement in the colonies, it was a historical watershed moment for education in the region as well (Jules, 2010). As elected representation became the norm in government, the expectations of an electorate finally finding its voice came to the forefront of political decision-making and the electorate wanted access to education. The achievement of adult suffrage among the West Indian masses led to projections of the next logical goal, independence from Great Britain. Education was perceived as inextricably linked and even constituent of this new goal (Jules, 2010).

7 Education was part and parcel of the dreams of West Indian populations for freedom and agency over their national futures. As achievements towards democracy and independence were achieved, educational demands grew in parallel. When the symphony of West Indian independence movements reached its crescendo, the issue of the broadening of access to education as a means to obtain more opportunity for personal advancement, better jobs and an exit path from poverty was front and centre on the minds of the newly empowered electorates (Jules, 2010). For the new local ruling elites, increasing access to education at all levels suited them as well because it was a powerfully symbolic manoeuvre signalling their intent to modernize in a key area that the previous colonial masters had neglected (Jules, 2010).

The Structure of a West Indian Education System The West Indian territories took control of their educational destinies as they grappled for independence from Great Britain in the middle of the twentieth century, but taking over didnt mean that they would start from scratch. The educational systems inherited by the English-speaking Caribbean countries had been modeled, from their earliest beginnings, on western educational paradigms (Bacchus, 2005). While major efforts were underway to expand access overall, in the post-colonial states the actual architecture of the system to be scaled upward was carried forward with little divergence. Mass primary education was provided to inculcate the general population with literacy and numeracy skills; a more exclusive provision of secondary education sustained the managerial strata required for the

8 maintenance and evolution of public and private institutions; and a very limited tertiary education sector contributed to the emerging nations thirst for professional and intellectual capacity (Jules, 2010). Jules (2010) stresses that from the time of the independence movements to the present, there are few instances of any type of radical rethinking of education in the West Indies. For the most part, West Indians have kept the delivery of education in their countries closely aligned with the postcolonial paradigm described above. While the educational architecture inherited from Great Britain stayed the same, it is important to note that what had been a more or less a single system administrated from Europe, became multiple systems administrated by a number of novice governments. Kazim Bacchus, a historian and expert on education in the West Indies, notes that due to the emergence of nationally elected legislators in the ex-colonies and the resulting efforts to provide nationally tailored solutions to educational problems, any attempt to conduct a single study of education in these countries since 1945 would present a substantial challenge to the researcher (Bacchus, 2005, p.i). This statement underscores the profound division of the regions education system during the period. As territories achieved independence, they carved up an educational system overseen by an external government, into multiple systems with local managers.

A Common Thread in Higher Education: The University of the West Indies Educational divergences since the independence period notwithstanding, the West Indian region has faced many common and overlapping problems and has

9 come together to develop regional educational solutions to these, including most prominently, a regional university (Bacchus, 2005). While the separation of governments in the region that exists today has meant the creation of multiple national higher education systems to meet national needs, these have been built around a unique regional university, the University of the West Indies, which has persisted to this day as the most important higher education institution in the region. Any attempt to describe higher education in any individual West Indian territory, or in the region as a whole, will include substantial discussion of UWI. It is the oldest, largest and most highly respected tertiary education institution in the region. Today it has a student population of over 40,000 enrolled in undergraduate, postgraduate, certificate and diploma programmes and spread across three physical campuses in different countries and a recently launched Open Campus that imparts distance education (Tewarie, 2009). UWI carries the prestige of its many notable academics such as Sir Arthur Lewis, a Nobel Prize winner, and its graduates include current and past leaders of international organizations such as the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) (Howe, 2003). UWI alumni hold positions in nearly every sphere of Caribbean economic and social leadership including many current and former West Indian prime ministers (Howe, 2003). Indeed, the universitys role in generating future generations of dynamic, imaginative and creative leaders has been lauded as perhaps its most valuable asset for the region (Nettleford, 2006). On a wider scale, the university is also a very important driver of social and economic development, specifically in the knowledge-based economy of the twenty-

10 first century. Higher education in general is known to improve the societies and communities in which it functions in a number of ways including: by increasing wages and productivity, thus making both individuals and countries richer; by enhancing culture and politics; and by encouraging independence and initiative, two highly valuable commodities in contemporary society (Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000). These effects of higher education have been repeatedly acknowledged in the West Indies. As Tewarie (2009) notes, one of the main commonalities across the numerous reports that have been conducted on the challenges of the West Indian tertiary education sector over the past is the pivotal role of tertiary level institutions in fostering the social, economic and cultural advancement of the peoples of the region (p.12). The university has a crucial role to play in the development of each territory in the region. While its fundamental role as an integral supporter of the development of the society it serves is not a unique trait for a university, its constitution as a regional university is quite unique, and demands close attention if one is to appreciate its particular challenges and opportunities. In fact, UWI was the first university to be designed with a regional scope (CARICOM Secretariat, 2005), and it is today one of only three regional universities in the world, the others being the University of the South Pacific, and the University of the Indian Ocean (Thomas & Soares, 2009). As will be shown, UWI is more than merely a creator of leaders and nurturer of development. In the words of Jamaican scholar and former UWI Vice-Chancellor Rex Nettleford, the institution takes pride in its ancestral pedigree as a symbol of, and seasoned activist in, fostering Caribbean unity (Nettleford, 2006, p.135).

11

A History of the First Regional University The history of UWI begins in 1948 with the establishment of the University College of the West Indies (UCWI) and its first department, the faculty of medicine (CARICOM Secretariat, 2005). The campus was built in a small Jamaican neighbourhood named Mona, which had previously been home to a sugar plantation (Sibley, 1978) on the outskirts of the capital city of Kingston. The university was planned to be small, targeting an initial and mostly local enrolment of 500 students but with a firm insistence on high academic standards, which were to be achieved through a special relationship with the University of London (Sherlock, 1966). While it was designed from its very inception as a regional university and with the close involvement of local West Indians (Tewarie, 2009), its creation was not entirely a product of local West Indian interest. Its start can be traced back to 1942, when a small committee of Jamaicans began to organize and seek the founding of a local university. However, this group not only lacked the funding to do so, they also faced local opposition (Sherlock, 1966). Great Britain played a key role in making this plan a reality by provided the initial funding, and helping to overpower the local opposition which Sherlock (1966) contends came from West Indian intellectuals who, having been educated abroad, were dissociated with West Indian society and thus questioned the advisability of establishing a local university. Placing the creation of the UCWI into a colonial/political context, Knight contends that its establishment was in fact part of a compromise between West Indian leaders and Great Britain, which emerged out of a regional conference in

12 Jamaica in 1947 (Knight, 1990). He explains that in the mid-1940s, British authorities that were by then resigned to the West Indies achieving some form of self-government, were interested in a West Indian autonomy that allowed for administrative efficiency and centralized bureaucracy. Therefore, they actively pitched the idea of modified self-governance under regional confederation. Most West Indians, on the other hand, wanted more advanced autonomy including eventual political independence and the control over their economic development that they believed would lead to improved standards of living (Sherlock, 1966). The British engineered a compromise to forestall full independence, and offered to pay to establish the UCWI and another regional institution, the West Indian Meteorological Services. The British compromise also led the colonies to agree to plans devised for the eventual creation of a political federation that would unite the British territories. While this plan would give many of the colonies their muchanticipated political independence, it would also require them to obtain this independence as a group (Knight, 1990). Great Britains compromise meant that it would have to design the university and also provide the capital for buildings and equipment needed to build its first campus (Sherlock, 1966). Not only did the British draw up the plans and build the structure, they also facilitated a special relationship between the UCWI and the University of London in which the latter lent its brand and expertise to ensure higher academic quality right from the beginning (Knight, 1966). The University of London would also be the issuer of all degrees and diplomas to be earned at the

13 newly created West Indian university, which was technically a college of its parental institution (Knight, 1966). Thus Great Britain played an instrumental role in the creation of the regions first major higher education institution, but perhaps not with the most selfless of intentions. In paying for the universitys creation, and fostering its linkage with the University of London, Great Britain was buying time and perhaps also installing a rather strategic mechanism to shape the future leaders of the colonies with British values and through British educational discourses and ideas. While Great Britain could not prevent the colonies from gaining independence, it could try to buy time and take steps to have the type of independence gained be in the form of one confederated state, which as mentioned above, was much more in keeping with the British interests of enhancing administrative efficiency and bureaucratic centralization (Knight, 1990). The gift of the UCWI might therefore be best understood as a bargaining chip to buy time and as a sort of Trojan horse to entrench British culture and discourse while simultaneously implanting some preliminary ligatures of the regionalism Britain saw as best for its maturing colonies. In the end, the hopes for a federation of English-speaking Caribbean states that the British had held fell short. The British push for a confederated West Indies came to a head in 1958 when the Federation of the West Indies was created as a political union that included the majority of British controlled West Indian colonies. The objective was to allow these colonies the opportunity to become independent, but only as a group. Knight (1990) contends that the federation was doomed from

14 the start because it was launched without the support of key politicians and political parties in the largest colonies (Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago), because it enjoyed only lukewarm popular support. Once created, it was immediately undermined by the inability of the major players to compromise on policy regarding key issues such as free movement of labour and the creation of a binding customs union (Knight, 1990). In 1961, Jamaica withdrew from the federation after a referendum in which 54 percent of the population voted against remaining in the federation (Sherlock, 1966). Despite attempts by Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados to salvage the federation, it ultimately failed and beginning in 1962, the majority of West Indian colonies cascaded to solitary independences as individual countries (Knight, 1990). Despite the fragmentation of the West Indies in the face of British attempts to avoid it, regional institutions remained in place, like the UCWI. While the colonies were abandoning the idea of direct cooperation in politics, they importantly did not abandon the idea of a regional university. However, the thirst for greater access and the desire for tertiary education as an instrument to fulfill newly minted nationalistic wants did lead to the establishment of new campuses in both Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados. Being a regional university, dealing with numerous independent states not afraid to voice their new national concerns meant that the institution had to adapt by quickly bending to meet the needs of diverse stakeholders, all of whom contributed to the budget, albeit at different levels. Even from its beginnings, the UCWI had acted on its regional mandate through the operations of an Extra-Mural

15 Department (EMD) in efforts to cater to the needs of West Indians outside of the Jamaican campus (CARICOM Secretariat, 2005). The EMD established a series of centres in each participating territory, however these were primarily intended to facilitate enrolment in the Jamaica campus (CARICOM Secretariat, 2005). This was clearly not sufficient, particularly for the regions other large and more developed countries that gained their independence shortly after Jamaica. For Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados, both of whom had taken turns trying to flex their regional muscles to hold together the West Indies Federation after the defection of Jamaica, the EMD and its local centres were not enough. Sherlock (1966) notes that in 1960, radical changes were made in the policy of the university. The UCWI became the University of the West Indies, taking its independence from the University of London and beginning to grant its own degrees (CARICOM Secretariat, 2005). The newly renamed institution quickly absorbed and renamed the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA) located in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, as its new Faculty of Agriculture (CARICOM Secretariat, 2005). This gave the regions second largest territory its own university campus. While ICTA was actually the first tertiary education institution in the region, having been launched in the early 1920s, its international character was intended primarily to serve European students studying West Indian agriculture (CARICOM Secretariat, 2005). In 1963, UWI inaugurated its third and final physical campus at Cave Hill, Barbados, which was bestowed with a faculty of arts and a faculty of natural sciences (CARICOM Secretariat, 2005). In addition to the drastic expansion - one in which different faculties were provided to different campuses -

16 UWI removed all residency requirements that previously limited non-residents of the campus countries to enrol (Sherlock, 1966). West Indian governments, recognizing the importance of higher education for their futures, worked to broaden access by providing more scholarships as well as encouraging evening study programs, all of which contributed to an eventual increase from a student body of around 1,000 in 1960, to 3,100 in 1965 (Sherlock, 1966).

The 1970s and 1980s Rather than abandoning the idea of a regional university as had been done with the regional political federation, UWI was expanded and strengthened in the 1960s. UWI remained entirely unrivalled as the regions primary source of university education through the 1970s and 1980s, and has only begun to be challenged for the regions top students who do not go to the US or Europe in recent decades (Simmons-McDonald, 2011). Despite the lack of competition until more recent times, or perhaps because of it, UWI was not without its detractors in the initial decades of its existence. In fact, at times it could depend on only a sort of begrudging acceptance of its continuation. From the 1960s until the 1980s, the regional character of the institution was seemingly under constant attack as many of the regions larger countries fidgeted uneasily under the pressure of wanting more control over their campuses including a decentralization of the universitys central administration (Drayton, 2001). While they continued to fund the university, dissatisfied political leaders such as the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Eric Williams, often voiced their displeasure

17 towards the institution (Drayton, 2001). The immigration policies of the three campus countries also posed constant threats to UWIs viability because in the absence of abundant distance education options, the non-campus countries depended on being able to send their students to one of the three campuses (Drayton, 2001). Changes to immigration policies that didnt recognize and embrace this fact, often made running the regional university difficult.

Challenges of Education in Small States These pressures are symptomatic of the perennial tensions that West Indian countries are forced to contend with between the need for their higher education institutions to be relevant in local contexts, and the need to obtain economies of scale in education provision. This is a particular challenge of small states in which there are often problems in overseeing the provision educational services due to the impact of social relations wherein everyone knows everyone, and difficulties in equalising educational opportunities for students in remote areas compared to those in more accessible and populace locations (Bacchus, 2008). Additionally, small states are often challenged to produce culturally relevant materials, conduct costeffective examinations and provide an adequate or appropriate breadth of higher education opportunities given the limited quantity of local demand for specific types of highly trained personnel (Bacchus, 2008). In the face of desires for increases to national higher education provision in the West Indies, MacIntyre (2001) notes that it is necessary to guard against the dangers of institutional proliferation. In tertiary education, critical minimum size

18 and economies of scales are extremely important considerations (p.355). The dangers come more specifically from issues such as the difficulty in recruiting and retaining high quality staff who may be forced to teach very limited ranges of courses or have little opportunity for intellectual interaction and poorly equipped infrastructure in the form of libraries, labs and equipment (MacIntyre, 2001). These challenges have played a major role in confining the nationalistic urges of even the largest West Indian states, which are still among the smallest countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Funding a Regional University One major internal challenge for UWI, which is related to this uneasy compromise between achieving the right balance between the need for local relevance and regional scale, is the complicated nature of its funding. The principal source of funding for UWI since the day of its creation has come from the participating governments and been administered through the University Grant Commission (UGC). Writing about the launch of UWI, Sherlock (1966) noted that the West Indian governments meet the recurrent cost through a University Grants Committee as in Britain but with this difference, that in Britain on Committee deals with a large number of universities whereas in the West Indies many governments deal with one university (p.134). The challenge of many stakeholders sharing one university alluded to by Sherlock has not dissipated with time. The addition of two more campuses, and a decentralization of central administrative control of each campus to their respective governments that took

19 place in the 1980s (Drayton, 2001) have made funding the university as problematic as ever (Tewarie, 2009). Nkrumah-Young et al. (2010) note that there are interesting parallels between the funding challenges and resulting destabilization effects on UWI over the years and a similar situation that has affect one of the worlds only other regional universities, the University of the South Pacific. In the cases of both universities, the complex political situation created by the involvement of multiple governments in funding leads to problems for the universities including inconsistent resources during times of fiscal stress, and the inability of some governments to always meet their obligations (Nkrumah-Young et al., 2010). These are serious problems that affect the entire university and its sustainability. These problems have pushed governments, especially of the larger more developed countries of the West Indies to think more seriously about abandoning the regional model of a higher education institution, but the dangers of this type of decentralization must also be weighed carefully lest important economies of scale be lost. This problem of national versus regional interests is wider than just the field of higher education for as Crosley and Holmes (2001) note, islands such as the West Indies are constantly challenged to make difficult decisions about whether to give priority to national versus regional development objectives. Decisions to fund national higher education solutions over regional ones have important economic implications in a region like the West Indies in the twenty-first century. Even the largest countries in the region, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago for instance, must be careful to not prioritize their own growth and national discretion over those of their closest neighbours if this means that the health of the whole region will suffer.

20

The 1980s to the Present: New Challenges and Opportunities The economic crisis afflicting the West Indies in the 1970s and 1980s was a new type of challenge to all areas of society, not least of which was higher education. A period of intense economic hardship in the region began in the 1970s as commodity prices and the international trade on which West Indian export economies depended declined sharply (Howe, 2003). This also led to steep increases in inflation (Howe, 2003). No public sector was spared the attention of governments looking to trim budgets. This was particularly the case for higher education, which was also made to suffer due to perceptions of lower rates of return than investment in basic education (Howe, 2003). By the mid 1990s, the region had emerged from economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s and began to regroup. Despite the fact that expansion of higher education in the region was uneven and often lacked clearly articulated philosophies, Howe (2003) notes that there is no disputing the fact that by the start of the decade of the nineties West Indian education had in many respects come of age[and] brought some clear benefits such as the fact that many countries significantly improved their ability to educate and train citizens to fill roles in governments, private sector organizations, the economies, and politics (p. 41). However, the world into which the West Indian countries began to re-emerge was different in important ways. Major geopolitical and technological changes were taking place around the world that had serious effects on the West Indian region. Massive political realignments including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the globalisation of international markets

21 for goods, services and capital and the unprecedented pace of technological innovation transformed the world in which higher education was required to operate (Clayton, 2000). For UWI, the changes led to new forms of competition due to the opening up of the regions tertiary education market to extra-regional providers and the emergence of new forms of technology-supported education delivery that challenged traditional face-to-face modes. Jules (2010) notes that in recent decades, Universities of all reputations have discovered the Caribbean to be a place of high demand for tertiary education (p.83). Trade agreements such as the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) have opened the regions tertiary education sector to foreign providers who have entered the market with great enthusiasm, both with satellite campuses and online distance education services (Jules, 2010). While the liberalisation of trade can be seen as a positive development in terms of enhancing access to a variety of tertiary programming, serious questions have been raised about the quality of these new providers. More specifically, scholars have raised questions about the ability of governments of developing states such as those of the West Indies to be able to regulate the supply of foreign higher education within their borders, given the regulations imposed by agreements such as GATS (Knight, 2002; Wagner, 2004). While much focus has been aimed at the threats brought by this radical degree of new technological advancement and trade liberalization, these same factors are also providing opportunity for UWI. For one, the West Indies is known to be a world-class tourist destination and institutions such as UWI may be able to

22 harness this reputation by attracting foreign students to the region (Jules, 2010). Long established tourism and hospitality management programs, such as those offered by UWI Centre for Hotel and Tourism Management in the Bahamas, might be scaled up and marketed throughout the world thereby allowing the region to capitalize on an area of competitive advantage to bring in students and revenues from abroad. Moreover, particularly in the area of distance education, UWI is strategically positioned to provide students in the region better access and quality, as well as to seek to capture markets of students around the world. Meeting the needs of students in the non-campus countries, or of those that are otherwise geographically isolated from traditional avenues for tertiary education has been a priority for UWI since its earliest beginnings. In 1958, the university began to experiment with distance education when it established the Radio Education Unit (REU) on the campus at Mona, Jamaica (Woodall, 2011). The REU produced radio programmes used throughout Jamaica and sent to the other islands to be broadcast in schools and teacher colleges (Thomas & Soares, 2009). In the 1970s, more serious attempts at distance education were launched and by the early 1980s, UWI had established is University Distance Teaching Enterprise (UWIDITE) a formal push into providing education and training for those not served by the physical campuses (Thomas & Soares 2009). Early scepticism about the usefulness UWIs system of distance education in the 1980s was overcome, and increased funding came as a result of the university realizing as early as 1981 that distance education could be a productive delivery

23 mechanism and that it was an effective tool to minimize the concerns of non-campus country governments who were critical of UWIs lack of physical presence in their countries (Fergus, Bernard, & Soares, 2007). For UWI, distance education was not just a novel mechanism of improving access for remote students, it was a requirement in order to be relevant to the people of the majority of countries that funded it who did not have the opportunity to attend any of the classes they were funding on their home soil. The growth of distance education as an integral part of UWIs activities took place concurrently with a pull from the campus countries to decentralize university control to the individual campuses. This move towards decentralization, which often ignored the concerns of the smaller non-campus countries (Drayton, 2001), was adapted to by UWI administration through the expansion of distance education opportunities. As a result, UWI declared itself a dual mode institution in 1994 (Woodall, 2011). This acknowledgement reaffirmed the growing legitimacy and importance of distance education activities at UWI and that they should be fully integrated with the normal work practices of the universitys faculties (Brandon, 1996). The recognition of the dual mode nature of the institution also sought to address several pressing issues facing the universitys distance education delivery, which were that distance education: was peripheral to the work of most staff; lacked quality support materials; was not being embraced through needed organisational change; and suffered from poor budgeting and financing (Woodall, 2011). Despite these problems, slowly and surely, the profile of distance education at UWI continued to grow in the 1990s and into the new millennium. In 1996, a

24 Board for Non Campus Countries and Distance Education (BNCCDE) was created to solve some of the aforementioned problems related to distance education provision at the university (Woodall, 2011). The creation of the new board, and the assignment of a Pro-Vice Chancellor to head it, further affirmed the emerging importance and status of distance education for the university (Fergus, Bernard, & Soares, 2007). Distance education at UWI was becoming more legitimate in the 1990s, but even with the establishment of the BNCCDE and the position of a Pro-Vice Chancellor to formalize and give legitimacy to its role in delivering education for the university, a lack of respect for the new mode of delivering education persisted. There remained a gap between the formalized policies and actual implementation and distance education remained a somewhat marginal practice because man of the agents of the university continued to overlook, ignore or obstruct the decisions made towards its legitimization (Brandon, 1996). In general, the delivery of courses through UWIs distance education models of the 1990s was still relatively inefficient, and faculty engagement was low as there was a major lack of incentives to push faculty to taking a stronger interest, partly owing to the fact that distance education program managers in UWIDEC had no authority over faculty who taught their courses (Woodall, 2011). These weaknesses meant that despite efforts by the university to provide its services to non-campus countries through distance education, many of these countries were compelled to set up local community colleges in order to meet demand (Woodall, 2011).

25 The growth of the Internet-based learning, led to a revitalization of UWI distance education programmes. Up until the end of the 1990s, distance education provided by the university had been either paper-based or delivered through the limited and expensive use of satellites video-conferencing (Woodall, 2011). However, by 2003 delivery through the Internet had become a viable alternative and a proposal was put forward to use the Internet to deliver courses asynchronously (Woodall, 2011). Avoiding the problems of long delays and lack of interactivity inherent paper-based distance education, as well as the extraordinary cost of satellite conferencing, the use of asynchronous pedagogical models through the Internet was a new avenue for education delivery. With the adoption of Internetbased delivery, UWIDEC gained even more legitimacy and was able to carve out additional autonomy and resources, which set the stage for the eventual creation of the UWI Open Campus (Woodall, 2011). In 2008, the Open Campus was launched. It was designed as a virtual campus with physical offices in each contributing country, which allowed for blended delivery as well as purely online modes of education (Woodall, 2011). Like the other the physical campuses, the Open Campus run by a powerful campus Principal and governed in a similar manner to the other campuses, with the exception that its staff were distributed across the region (Woodall, 2011). Establishing the Open Campus was an important step that concreted the legitimacy of both the use of distance education, and the needs of the non-campus countries that benefit most from it. Since its creation, it has allowed UWI to provide access to the regions more

26 geographically isolated students and compete with the local and foreign providers that have recently entered the tertiary education market. It must be noted that one area that is still in need of being addressed in order for Internet-based distance education to be accessible for many of the regions remotely located students is the relatively low levels of Internet connectivity of a majority of West Indian countries. As of December 2011, the percentage of the population with access to the Internet in Caribbean island countries (not just the former British colonies) was still relatively low at 28.7 percent (Internet World Statistics, 2012). Possibly more troubling for those with high hopes for the UWI Open Campus potential to reach underserved populations and help to rectify inequalities is that there is great diversity in Internet penetration across West Indian countries. From Montserrat and Grenada at the low end of the spectrum with 23.3 percent and 32.3 percent Internet penetration respectively, to Saint Lucia, and Antigua and Barbuda with 88.5 percent and 80.8 percent Internet penetration respectively at the high end, great disparity exists across the various non-campus countries. This means that students in some countries will likely have a much easier time benefitting from the UWI Open Campus than those in others. There is reason for optimism however, in that regional efforts such as the 2003 Georgetown Declaration and the development of a CARICOM connectivity strategy have begun, albeit slowly, to enhance the enabling environment for ICT expansion in the region (Gaible, 2009). The most highly encouraging sign is that growth rates in Caribbean Internet connectivity have been climbing exponentially since 2000, an accomplishment that Warf (2009) attributes to declining prices in the

27 telecommunications sector and increased affordability of computer hardware and software. However, institutional capacity for expansion of Internet supply either by the public sector or private entrepreneurs remains low, and the till realatively high costs not just of Internet service, but also of electricity and computer maintenance continue to be barriers that need to be overcome (Gaible, 2009). Gaible (2009) also notes that other problems such as a lack of education, or of confidence in the ability to learn may also bar widespread computer use by the general population (p.7). Clearly, overcoming obstacles to greater Internet connectivity, especially in countries with relatively low levels of internet access and among populations that remain isolated due to a lack of infrastructure or a lack of skills and aptitudes, is crucial for the UWI Open Campus to fulfill its mandate. The UWI Open Campus can also now compete for students globally, and not just those in the West Indies. This new development could provide the region with a potentially very significant opportunity for economic growth through the provision of tertiary education around the world. This is particularly promising for a region like the West Indies, as the West Indian cultural diaspora is vast (Bolland, 2004; Torres-Saillant, 2006) and thus leads to a promisingly fertile market of potential education consumers. Some estimates indicate that there are now more individuals who share a common West Indian culture living outside of the West Indies than there are physically living in the region (Beckles, 2011). With reference to the broader Caribbean basin, no other region on earth has a higher percentage of emigrants relative to total population (Erisman, 2003).

28 This massive diaspora community is particularly likely to benefit from the type of reasonably priced, culturally relevant, professional and personal development that the UWI Open Campus is able to provide. This group represents an untapped market and a means to further of expand scale. Furthermore, these individuals send remittances home to the West Indies, and so any increases to salaries due to educational advancement will likely lead to greater remittances sent back to the islands. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that many West Indian emigrants return to the region after spending their working lives outside of the West Indies (ECLAC, 2006), and when they do so, they will bring their talents, experience and their wealth back with them.

A Regional Approach to Higher Education in the Contemporary Context While UWI remains the only dedicated regional provider of higher education in the West Indies, today it operates in a highly competitive market full of national and extra-regional higher education providers. Tewarie (2009) notes that there are new national institutions supported by governments, private sector investors and foreign providers either in joint-ventures or alone emerging in almost every island and jurisdiction as demand increases and opportunities present themselves (p.3). By 2003 there were over 150 tertiary education institutions operating in the West Indies, of which 60 percent were publicly funded, 30 percent were privately funded and the remaining portion received mixed funding (Howe, 2003). While the increase in local competition has resulted in changes to the operating environment of UWI, it is unlikely that any of these institutions can

29 seriously challenge the regional university, given its size, reputation and history. Tewarie (2009) and Howe (2003) both argue that in the context of increased competition, there is great opportunity for UWI to strengthen its role as a relevant and responsive regional institution and also for it to be a leader and integrator that supports the development and enhancement of the other tertiary institutions. The notion that UWI should assist smaller institutions in the region is not new. Indeed, as early as the late 1980s, calls were being made for UWI to be more systemically networked with other existing tertiary level institutions in the region. The idea was that most countries had by then a crop of institutions that could at least provide the first year of a degree education and possibly even as many as the first three years (MacIntyre, 2011). This type of partnership is practical because it cuts the costs and time required for obtaining a university education, while enabling the regional university and its local partners to engage in closer cooperation with the communities they serve (MacIntyre, 2011). Significant strides appear to have been made since the 1980s and 1990s in generating these partnerships. By 2009, UWI had ongoing collaborative relations with nearly 30 tertiary education institutions in the region and several more partnerships in the works (Tewarie, 2009). Moving forward, it is likely that UWI will seek to expand its role as a leader and guide for new institutions, particularly those that are public.

Contemporary West Indian Higher Education in Context

30 Immediately following the independence period, the challenges in West Indian education were fundamentally centred on access and quality, but todays challenges are increasingly of a social nature (Jules, 2008). Social problems including drug abuse, crime and youth violence continue to plague many of the islands (Blouet, 2007). These social problems have wide-ranging negative effects on economic development and on the sustainability of West Indian society more generally (Maingot, 2011). West Indian economies, traditionally dependent on a now declining agriculture sector, have more recently shifted to a reliance on services like tourism, but still suffer from a lack of regional cooperation in economic and political terms that undermines many of the regions potential strengths (Blouet, 2007). Added to these internal threats, is that if not properly adapted to, the influences of globalisation threaten to undermine the very fabric of West Indian society and culture that keeps this small but fragile community together (Nettleford, 2009; Rahim & Lalla, 2009). Enhancing higher education through new Internetbased delivery modalities, additional funding, and better regional cooperation has been presented as one of the most important means of solving many of the pressing social and economic problems now faced by the region (Beckles, 2011; Blouet, 2007). Higher education then has an important role to play in the region and the uniquely regional provider of higher education is in a particularly strategic position to play this role.

Conclusion

31 The story of higher education in the West Indies is a relatively short one, encompassing only a little more than 60 years. Yet, it is a story with many twists and turns and a great deal of intricacy. As West Indian countries sought independence, British influence resulted not only a in a particularly English style of West Indian governance, but also in an British-style university intended to serve the region, not just a particular country. The university intended to serve a federation that never materialized, but it has persisted nonetheless. It has survived over the years in the context of continuous struggle between the countries it serves, each of which must continually weigh national needs, against the efficiencies of acting in concert as a region. Today the university has entered a new globalised era in which technology has empowered it to meet the needs of its community more than ever before through Internet-based distance education. However, globalisation has also brought increased competition with resource-rich competitors from around the world that take advantage of the liberalization of global trade to tap into new West Indian markets. More than perhaps anything else, the lesson learned from the peculiar history of the University of West Indies, is that it is more than just an educational institution serving to develop individuals and to foster the development of the economies and societies it serves. West Indian nations have pushed and pulled the university in many directions and have often tried to squeeze every last drop of national relevance and value from the institution. However, while on the level of politics and governance it has been a battleground for constitutionally defined states, on a cultural level it has in many ways transcended politically created

32 borders and tapped into a deeper and more culturally united and broadly West Indian constituency whose common history and current plight make cooperation necessary and natural. The case of UWI, while at first glance may seem too unique to teach us much about the interplay between politics and higher education in other countries or regions, can on close inspection reveal valuable information. National and multilateral politicians, and university administrators can learn a great deal from the experience of UWI. As other regional communities increase their integration in order to be able to respond to the level of competitiveness in the new global economy, understanding the opportunities and threats faced by existing and new regional organizations, including universities, constitutes an important knowledge that may help leaders to adapt to the an increasingly competitive and interconnected world.

33

Bibliography Alleyne, G., Bethel, K., Bobb, K., Gayle, D., Graham, L., Leo-Rhynie, E., et al. (2006). Report of the Chancellors Task Force on Governance of the UWI. University of the West Indies. Bacchus, K. (2008). The education challenges facing small nation states in the increasingly competitive global economy of the twenty-first century. Comparative Education, 44(2), 127-145. Bacchus, K. (2005). Education for economic, social and political development in the British Caribbean Colonies from 1896-1945. London, ON: Althouse Press. Baksh, V. (2011, May). [Interview with Hazel Simmonds-McDonald, Principal of the UWI Open Campus]. The Pelican: A magazine of the University of the West Indies, pp. 1-4. Retrieved from http://sta.uwi.edu/pelican/features/article1.asp Beckles, H. (Speaker). (2011). The Caribbean in a Changing Global Environment [Digital recording]. Retrieved from http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/channels/publicLect uresAndEvents/player.aspx?id=1066 Blouet, O. M. (2007). The Contemporary Caribbean: History, life and culture since 1945. London: Reaktion Books. Bolland, O. N. (2004). Introduction. In O. N. Bolland (Ed.), The birth of Caribbean civilization: A century of ideas about culture and identity, nation and society (pp. xvi-xxvii). United Kingdom: James Currey Publishers. Brandon, E. P. (1996). Distance Education in the Restructured UWI: Policy and problems. Caribbean Curriculum, 6, 35-53. Caricom Secretariat (2005). CARICOM: Our Caribbean community: An introduction. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. Crossley, M., & Holmes, K. (2001). Challenges for educational research: International development, partnerships and capacity-building in small states. Oxford Review of Education, 27(3), 395-409.

34 Drayton, K (2001). The University of the West Indies at a Crossroads. In K. O. Hall (Ed.), The Caribbean community: Beyond survival (pp. 52-59). Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. ECLAC (2005). Migration in the Caribbean: What do we know? Paper presented at the Expert Group Meeting on International Migration and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean of the Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean, November 30-December 2, 2005. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/esa/population/meetings/IttMigLAC/P09_ECLAC(Port%2 0of%20Spain).pdf Erisman, H. M. (2003). International relations. In R. Hillman & T. DAgostino (Eds.), Understanding the contemporary Caribbean (pp. 149-178). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Fergus, H., Bernard, L., & Soares, J. (2007). Breaking down the walls: An evolution of the Extra Mural Department: The University of the West Indies 1947-2000. Kingston, Jamaica: The School of Continuing Studies of the University of the West Indies. Gaible, E. (2009). Survey of ICT and education in the Caribbean: A summary report, based on 16 country surveys. Washington, DC: infoDev/World Bank. Retrieved from http://www.infodev.org/en/Publication.441.html Howe, G. D. (2003). Contending with change: Reviewing tertiary education in the English-speaking Caribbean. Caracas, Venezuela: International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Internet World Statistics. (2012). Internet usage and population statistics for the Caribbean. Retrieved from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats11.htm#caribbean Jules, D. (2010). Rethinking education for the Caribbean: A radical approach. In P. Mayo (Ed.), Education in small states: Global imperatives, regional initiatives and local dilemmas (pp. 79-90). London: Routledge. Knight, F. W. (1990). The Caribbean: The genesis of a fragmented nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Knight, J. (2002). Trade in Higher Education Services: The Implications of GATS. London: International Strategic Information Service. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/education/studyingabroad/highlights/global_forum/ gats_he/jk_trade_he_gats_implications.pdf MacIntyre, A. (2001). The West Indian University Revisited. In Ed. K. O. Hall The Caribbean community: Beyond survival. Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers.

35

Macpherson, A. S. (2011). Toward decolonization: Impulses, processes, and consequences since the 1930s. In S. Palmi & F. A. Scarano (Eds.), The Caribbean: A history of the region and its peoples (pp. 475-490). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Maingot, A. P. (2011). Independence and its aftermath: Suriname, Trinidad, and Jamaica. In S. Palmi & F. A. Scarano (Eds.), The Caribbean: A history of the region and its peoples (pp. 523-536). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Nettleford, R. (2009). Cultural studies: The way forward. In J. Rahim & B. Lalla (Eds.), Beyond Borders: Cross-Culturalism and the Caribbean Canon (pp. 256264). Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Nettleford, R. (2006). Vice Chancellors Closing Remarks CARICOM 30th Anniversary Conference. In K. O. Hall (Ed.), Rex N: Rex Nettleford Selected Speches (pp. 134-136). Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publshers. Nkrumah-Young, K. K., Huisman, J., & Powell, P. (2010). The impact of funding policies on higher education in Jamaica. In P. Mayo (Ed.) Education in small states: Global imperatives, regional initiatives and local dilemmas (pp. 91-103). London: Routledge. Rahim, J. & Lalla, B. (2009). Cross-culturalism and the Caribbean Canon: A window to future possibilities. In J. Rahim & B. Lalla (Eds.), Beyond Borders: CrossCulturalism and the Caribbean Canon (pp. 1-16). Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Sherlock, P. (1966). West Indies. London: Thames and Hudson. Sibley, I. K. (1978). Dictionary of Place-Names in Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Jamaica. Task Force on Higher Education and Society. (2009). Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise. Washington, DC: World Bank. Tewarie, B. (2009). The regional university model Does it still stand? Paper presented at the International Institute for Educational Planning Policy Forum, Paris, France, 2-3 July. (pp.1-18) Retrieved from http://www.iiep.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Policy_Forums/2009/Te warie_TrinidadTobago.pdf Thomas, M. L., & Soares, J. (2009). Increasing public access to university qualifications: Evolution of the University of the West Indies open campus. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(1), 1-30.

36 Torres-Sailant, S. (2006). An Intellectual History of the Caribbean. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wagner, P. (2004). Higher Education in an Era of Globalization: What is at Stake? In J. K. Odin & P. T. Manicas (Eds.), Globalization and Higher Education (pp. 7-23). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai`i Press. Warf, B. (2009). Diverse spatialities of the Latin American and Caribbean Internet. Journal of Latin America Geography, 8(2), 125-145. Woodall, L. C. (2011). Transitioning to online education in the Caribbean: The UWI open campus (Doctoral Dissertation). Retrieved from https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/29938/1/Woodall_Lora_C _20117_PhD_thesis.pdf