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Continuing
Education Programmes Flourish in Trinidad and Tobago
By Peter Richards,
Inter Press Service |
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 Port
of Spain, 10 March (IPS) - Continuing education -- evening classes
for working people -- has undergone a huge transformation over
the last decade in Trinidad and Tobago as thousands of people
of all ages seek to improve their marketability. |
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''For the student, there is an overt aura of jubilation and
ecstasy. Myriad opportunities are suddenly available to the
extent that a new wave of problems is emerging -- the choices
are just too many,'' says Selwyn Jagdeo, president of the Institute
of Tertiary Tutors. |
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| The
millions of dollars spent annually by students on continuing
education have also spawned institutions offering courses they
are not qualified to provide, so much so that the government
has had to issue warnings to the public. |
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The
government says many of the private institutions are taking
advantage of the potential student's haste ''to make ourselves
marketable and to have the competitive edge in the job market.''
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| The
Sir Hugh Wooding Law School, affiliated to the University of
the West Indies (UWI), for instance, is finding the proliferation
of private educational institutions, particularly those providing
courses in legal education, somewhat worrisome. |
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| But
Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj has launched a bitter
attack on the Law School, complaining that many private students
have been denied entry to the school, a situation which effectively
denies them the right to practice law in the region. |
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| ''No
government can ignore the discrimination and injustice being
suffered by its nationals who are being denied their basic right
to pursue the professional career of their choice,'' Maharaj
said. |
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| According
to figures produced by the Attorney General, only 14 of 138
external degree graduates were allowed into the Sir Hugh Wooding
Law School in 1999 and he has blamed the Council of Legal Education
for that situation. About 60 new external law degree graduates
seek entry to the law school annually. |
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| But
the Council of Legal Education, the governing body for the region's
two law schools -- the other school is located in Jamaica --
has dismissed Maharaj's concerns pointing out that it was not
a body independent of Caribbean governments and capable of pursuing
its own agenda. The UWI is funded by Caribbean governments.
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''Any decision to change the admission policy is a decision
entirely up to the governments,'' the Council's chairman, Jamaican
Dennis Morrison, a Queen's Counsel said. |
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| The
region's governments have no say, however, in what the scores
of entrepreneurial organisations spawned out of large conglomerates,
professional associations and foreign institutions have brought
to the continuing education movement. |
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| A
number of foreign institutions, including the Mount Allison
University of Canada, have been making pitches to potential
students here, forging partnerships with private sector businesses,
providing yet another avenue for continued education. |
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| ''There
are now reputable educational establishments providing bona
fide links with internationally accredited institutions. Joyfully,
educational barriers are now broken as many routes are available
for the acquisition of a degree or professional qualification,''
says Jagdeo of the Institute of Tertiary Tutors. |
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The technological revolution has helped in that respect, with
the Internet, teleconferencing and external programmes providing
the students with new options. |
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| The
Royal bank of Trinidad and Tobago's Institute of Business and
Technology has formed an alliance with the University of New
Brunswick in Canada offering a number of degree and associate
degree programmes ranging from journalism to education to nursing
-- all via distance learning. . |
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| ''They
are all here, new money has bred a host of new providers and
the changing nature of society has contributed to the replacement
of the established providers by new ones,'' says Lennox Bernard,
Resident Tutor at the UWI's School of Continuing Education at
the St. Augustine campus here. |
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| The
School of Continuing Studies, formerly known as the Extra Mural
Studies Unit, is the oldest ''second chance'' institution here
and began operations in 1949 with a handful of students. |
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| It
has grown to a present student body of more than 10,000 pursuing
no less than 50 courses that included Certificate programmes
with access to main campuses of the University, and general
education, special skills, and job-oriented curricula. |
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''We are improving our teaching spaces and building new ones,
with the intention of providing a learning culture that is safe,
receptive and true to the lifelong learning principle. All this,
as we seek to maintain tuition fees at a rate that the working
class can pay,'' Bernard said. |
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| The
government also got involved in continuing education last year
launching a College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts
(COSTAATT) offering Associate Degrees and ''relevant hands on
tertiary training.'' |
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| ''COSTAATT
was created to address the urgent need to expand the range of
tertiary education programmes available in Trinidad and Tobago.
For the past two decades, it has become more and more apparent
that the options for tertiary education need to be expanded,''
COSTAATT said. |
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| Another
government initiative is the community-based distance learning
centres, which were launched ''to make education and training
accessible to as many citizens as possible.'' |
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| Dr
Rupert Griffith, the minister of training and distance learning
says the centres will provide ''additional opportunity for closing
the gap between the existing demand for knowledge skills and
competence on one hand, and the inadequate supply of skill and
knowledgeable personnel on the other.'' |
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| This
article is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced
provided that Inter Press Service is credited. |
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