COMMUNITY COLLEGE WHERE LEARNING

HAS NO AGE LIMIT

 

By Clevon Raphael

Independent

June 2, 2000

Page 20

 

THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE WANTS YOU

·        Anybody who has achieved five subjects at CXC or O Level.

·        Anyone who has failed O Levels but wants a second chance at education.

A development programme will be in place that brings them to the standard of somebody with five O Levels and then allow them to enter an associate degree programme or some relevant programme they want to do.

·        Anyone who has done exceptionally well at O Levels, sometimes getting nine ones or who have already passed their A Levels, and who would be attracted to the college in a special accelerated programme.

 

So you didn't get five passes at O Levels.

 

Do you drop out of the school system and let your life go to waste?

 

The country's first national community college is promising to come to your rescue.

 

It is an educational institution with absolutely no age barrier too.

 

The College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTATT) is being established to increase Trinidad and Tobago's competitiveness on the international business market - a sort of revolutionary approach to education, according to Dr. Bhoe Tewarie, chairman of the National Institute of Higher Education, Research Science and Technology (NIHERST) under whose aegis the college is being run.

 

Tewarie, also executive director of the UWI Institute of Business, explained in an interview last week that one of the big needs in Trinidad and Tobago was how to expand the number of people who received education beyond the secondary level.

 

The former Cabinet member in the NAR administration (1986-1991) added:

 

"The challenge is that we have only one university and there is a limit to how many can attend that one university even if it expands, so the idea of the community college is really to expand access to tertiary education."

 

"We also need to increase the intellectual capital capacity of the country because that is vital for country competitiveness today."

 

The community college idea, which has been spoken about here for about 10 years now, originated in the United States during the 1960s, and approximately 80 percent of the people who finish a university degree actually started at a community college there.

 

Tewarie, a former Senior Lecturer at the University of the West Indies, said:

 

"So the idea was long under discussion here and it was only in 1997 that this government took the very firm and bold decision that they will establish a community college."

 

"And more than that, the Basdeo Panday-led government took the visionary and revolutionary move to establish the entity by bringing together institutions that already existed in Trinidad and Tobago."

 

"They asked NIHERST to lead this venture in collaboration with the San Fernando Technical Institute, the John Donaldson Technical Institute, Eastern Caribbean Institute of Agriculture; Metal Industries Limited (MIC), Point Fortin Government Training Centre and the Joint Services Staff College.

 

"The idea is to use the resources of these institutions that constitute the NIHERST College, and each one will become a campus for the community college."

 

What difference would this new institution, which is already off and running, make?

 

"First of all, it would be a college that is vary closely linked with the market economy and the business community, so that it will try to serve the needs of the business community in terms of the skills that it needs in order to develop competitive businesses."

 

"Secondly there is some need for curriculum re-design in keeping with the diversifying nature of the economy.  For instance, do we want to train people in agriculture to do administrative work in agriculture, or do we want to train people in agriculture to become part of the productive process of the country?"

 

"Do we want to train people in the technical schools in the country to become plants or do we want people who add value to industry and integral parts of the engineering support systems of the industry?  And I think it is this kind of orientation that is required of the new community college so that it would become a complement of what is being done at the University of the West Indies."

 

Looking to the prospects of the college he pointed out:

 

"We see the college as having a development role, taking students at O Level in order to accelerate the number of students who get access to tertiary education at a younger age; and we see it also as playing a role in attracting bright and gifted students who want to do a different course of studies from the traditional ones offered by the university."

 

"COSTATT will take them age 16, so it is possible for somebody to graduate with a university degree at the age of 20."

 

Persons interested in joining the college simply have to fill out forms at NIHERST or any of the various campuses and then go through a selection process.

 

Although now functional COSTATT still has to be fully formalized and in this direction enabling will soon be debated in parliament.  One certainty is that it has been placed under the Ministry of Planning and Development.

 

Tewarie explains:

 

"There is some sense to that in terms of planning strategies because you need to know how many engineers you are going to have and such.  The ministry also does a lot of research trying to keep in tune with what is going to be our future needs in terms of skills and so on."

 

The need for such an institution is clearly obvious for several reasons including the fact that of those who annually sit the O Level examinations, about 60 percent do not get a full five passes.

 

Tewarie:

 

"So it means that a student getting the five passes at O Level could decide that, look, I am going to college rather than go into A Levels."

 

"That is an option because he can still go into A Level.  The second thing is what do you do with young children, because they are really children, at the age of 15 or 16 if they happen to get three O Levels or four."

 

"Do you cast them aside or do you tell them look, that is the end of your opportunity?  So there is now a second chance for these students to bring them into the system."

 

He added that a lot of research has been done worldwide on the relationship between education and the capacity of a country to compete.  In most f the studies that have been done, there is a strong correlation between the number of people who have access to tertiary education, especially the technical field and technology areas, and the competitiveness of these countries.

 

Some work has been done showing that one of the reasons for the high achievement of the Asian countries and relatively low achievements of the Caribbean and Latin America region, might be explained in terms of the emphasis placed on education especially tertiary education, and on education that is rooted in technological and technical subjects.

 

Access to tertiary education in this country, Tewarie revealed, was very low and that less than 10 percent of the population actually receives a tertiary education.  Compared with the international we are doing very badly, although the picture is the opposite in primary and secondary education.

 

Is anybody or any organisation at fault here?

 

Tewarie:

 

"I don't think it is blame or fault, it has to do with the evolution of our system.  In the initial days Dr. Williams and several other administrations placed a lot of emphasis on making primary and secondary education accessible to large numbers of people, and about 80 percent have access to secondary education which is pretty good in the world."

 

"What this government is doing now with the expansion of the secondary education system and the elimination of the Common Entrance examination, is that we are going to see a 100 percent access to secondary education which is a major achievement."

 

"But the fact that this government has been decisive on the issue of tertiary education is important, and setting up of the community college is in keeping with a Caricom decision three years ago that we should try by 2005, to have at least 15 percent participation rate in tertiary education."

 

"So we are trying to achieve that through the community college and together with UWI we hope to double that achievement by 2010.  If we have 30 percent participation by 2010, I think we would be in good shape."

 

Funding of the college is being achieved through a combination of government, business, student fees, scholarships etc, etc.

 

"What we hope to do is to reduce the amount the State contributes, increase the amount the private sector contributes through donations, scholarships and such, and have the student pay a reasonable percentage of the real cost of education."

 

"We will not be pricing the courses out of reach of the students and for those who cannot afford to pay we will create a system in which those who are entitled to enter a programme will not be denied access."

 

"They will be provided with scholarships grants, etc and COSTATT will not discriminate against somebody because they are not able to pay.  Once they are accepted we will find a means of funding the cost of the education for that person."

 

"One of the things we would like to do in the community college is that everybody who wants to improve and develop themselves will be allowed to do so regardless of their age."

 

"While I emphasized the business about O Levels and young people, the community college will also cater for older people who may never have a chance to enter the classroom in a formal way and develop themselves personally."

 

"We will have a programme for adults at any age either to go into a formal degree programme or a programme to improve or develop a skill or knowledge in a particular area."

 

"So basically what we want to do is to create a society in which anybody can take advantage of an opportunity to learn and to develop themselves.  We want to create a learning community and a learning society because the society that is most competitive is the society with the most learners."

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