Submitted by Douglas
Sir Hilary Beckles Principal of UWI, Cave Hill
I write this out of a concern that we are not hearing the FULL TRUTH about this issue of the FUNDING of UWI education. As I read the comments of the Principal and Pro-Vice Chancellor, Professor Sir Hilary McDonald Beckles, I Cry shame on a man I formerly respected. As one of his former students I admired his brilliance and indeed while I have lost respect for this man, I must admit he did much to transform many aspects of the Cave Hill Campus. He built buildings, indeed monuments. I did hear staff, teaching and other, complain that you could not question him, he alone, had all the answers. I understand he brooks no opposition.
I was listening to many callers overs the past few months, and most recently when I heard a Government Minister trying to rationalise the decision to have students pay part of the cost of their education at UWI. I asked myself, how did we get here? Those who support the Government say this should have been in place a long time ago. Those who oppose the Government say students should not pay. We need to hear from the Minister of Education. He did not even touch this in the Estimates Debate. I have been trying to understand why we have reached this point, and have been asking questions of all kinds of people. They have all left me with more questions than answers and I therefore want to pose some questions to the University, its Principal, Deputy Principal and all the senior managers as well as the Minister of Education (and those who went before him).
Continue reading – Beckles II, Beckles III, Beckles IV and Beckles V
The university might have to start putting measures in place for more part-time students who are working, as persons leaving school will start to focus on seeking a job, or their own business before a university education. Perhaps UWEE may also consider a partnership with the BTA is persuading more foreign students to study here,
IF the Open Campus is seeing increase membership this number must be factored in overall membership.
Douglas
You deserve a medal for carrying all that water for your beloved DLP. Otherwise your piece is SHITE.
So we DO have people in Barbados who can see….and who can articulate logical, perceptive, SENSIBLE questions such as these raised in this blog?
WTH…..there may yet be some hope for us.
Well done Douglas.
Once we get these answers we cal all join with Sir Cave Hillary and start to reengineer education in this region towards its true developmental potential.
Yes..thank you Douglas. On Friday, wasn’t it, one Mary asked him whether he accepted any responsibility for the “catastrophe” of penury. He said it was all the Government’s fault. The man is a wind bag and in denial.
Sir Hilary is on record making the point that paying tuition cost will impact the youth, the working class and women. His position is based on the demographic of student population.
Douglas – your order of questions is spot on – to which I would add. unless I missed it, how the ‘economic cost’ of students annually is calculated. And I would want to ask how he justified the switch from ICB to Sagicor as university health insurers in circumstances where he is a director of Sagicor and no consultation took place with affected persons.
I fail to understand why anyone would wish to make this a party thing in circumstances where they genuinely have the interests of the University and its students at heart. In that sense no-one is above scrutiny. And THAT is central to what BU says it stands for surely.
David
Well of course he would. It masks his profligate irresponsibility.
The UWI Needs Closer Attention, it is not Business as Usual those days have long gone.
I will use BU to question the Phantom Advisor of the President of the Guild of Undergraduates Mr.Parris.
I understand that it is the expensive side kick of the Sir Hillary Beckles, a Ms. Carew, whose claim to fame was selling phones in a Digicel Kiosk in Castries.
She is now a highly paid employee at Cave Hill.
The staff at UWI long wondered what she did on a day to day basis. Guess she is one of Sir’s spare tyres assigned to do something.After all a house and car don’t come cheap.
The paid ads and statements are from her pen we are told.
The hapless young President dose not seem capable of putting a proper sentence together and he is a student of the UWI.. He should perhaps spend more time in the classroom,
This woman is here using tax payers’ money and time.
Her real surname is Caroo or something like that. She is one of his young girls he has created a job for. Yet he can complain.He needs to start with some staff cuts.
Got to ask sometime how the scholarships he was giving to OECS were funded. I understand that he was using part of what taxpayers were paying to fund these.
Let the Auditors see sources if this is not the case.
Would you also believe that Beckles described the Cabinet as intellectually challenged in a University meeting ?????? Amazing indeed when most of them are graduates of the same UWI.
Many have first and second degrees from that place.
Some even taught there. How are they different from the former Cabinet ????
Is he so describing them too?
Does he think his efforts to poison the minds of staff will stop them from blaming him and exposing him.????
Many of them are upset about his attitude to this Government since 2008.
So who is going to bring all the answers the writer seeks to light? Surely not this government whose transparency is black as night. If UWI is sinking ship to them then, rest assured they will let it sink. Some things are better viewed in hindsight. UWI and what it’s real value is and could have been to a new economically strong Barbados will be determined then, in hindsight. Meanwhile in a shrinking economy gov’t can’t pay, students can’t pay, parents can’t pay but we all will have to pay.
Hilary is powerless and it shows.
What are the “economic costs” associated with degrees obtained via the Open Campus? Unlike the “brick and mortar” version, the Open Campus does not detail an economic cost for any of its degrees. If there is no economic cost associated with the Open Campus degrees (and this is a supposition on my part) why doesn’t the Government insist on moving as many programmes to the Open campus and save itself a minimum of $44 000 per year per student in economic costs? One can do a degree in say History and Politics or Law or Mathematics online as easily as in the face-to-face mode.
According to the Open Campus website, a student pursuing say a BSc in Accounting should take a minimum of 5 years to complete the degree. Does the new Barbados Government regulations regarding time allowed to complete a degree apply?
If an applicant already has a degree from UWI what financial strictures are applied if pursuing a degree via the Open Campus?
UWI has announced that some 24 000 persons are using the Open Campus. How many of these are Barbadians? At $600 per 3 credit course, a BSc in accounting (30 three credit courses) will cost $18 000 plus administrative fees. Are Barbadians finding the money for Open Campus degrees but not for the Cave Hill campus versions?
Will anyone at UWI be brave and come on BU and answer any of the questions posed?
@Ping Pong
If they don’t want to come on BU the respected media practioners who troll BU have the opportunity to live up to the tenets of the Fourth Estate.
It is amazing (and depressing) that on two major issues, the waste-to-energy plant and UWI, BU has provided more information and more importantly more probing questions than either the newspapers and other conventional news media or …..the official Opposition in the House of Assembly.
@Ping Pong
The key to why, SALES!
Credit: Barbados Today
I heard Beckles on Sunday not Friday – as today’s Nation reminds me on the front page. But the question was indeed asked by ‘Mary’ bless her. Dunno what David has against her.
Now one of the things he says, front page wise, is that he has no idea why it is that regional “interest” has fallen by 20%. This is another big one.
He knows very well that since Trinidad and Jamaica determined to go it alone in Law, the main sources for regional applications in that subject and, indeed, Campus wide, there was bound to be a fall off; and that this was equally bound to be mirrored in applications from what used to be referred to as ‘combined island’ territories for whose students Jamaica and Trinidad are much cheaper and more convenient options, with no ‘capping’ as at Cave Hill so far as I’m aware, and with Law Schools just next door.
Moreover, he also knows that as a consequence of HIS disastrous choice of Dean, against the wishes of Faculty, some years ago most of the brightest Faculty members in Law left for the other Campus’, or for alternative employment, or because they became so totally disenchanted that they as good as left. Why would students want to come to a one-legged Faculty?
Jeff C is, of course, a notable exception and should have been Dean then or now rather than the pedestrian and unimaginative plodder in place. But then under this dispensation that is the way of it – put in place ‘yes- people’, mostly women for sure, and second-raters who will rock no boats and succumb to the ‘I am Hilary’ charm. Anyone with back-bone, as Douglas notes, will suffer for their independent spirit in an institution which demands universal ‘Hilary-Glow’ as the only alternative to the wilderness.
It is high time that Dr. Beckles be held accountable. There is no head of any university any part of the world who would willingly engage in open political warfare and expect to remain in such a prominent position . The MCG has been monitoring Professor Beckles for many years and we are still amazed that after he went after the Mutual(Sagicor) , he ended up on the Board while many of the real foot soldiers in that battle were victimized and left to perish socially and economically.
In all fairness to Sir. Hilary, the UWI Cave Hill has always been a law unto itself and while Sir. Hilary is known to be a close associate of former Prime Minister Owen Arthur, Sir Keith Hunte was in bed with the Democratic Labour Party ! The UWI , like many other institutions dependent on government financing has fallen prey to the vicious party politics that now envelops the country. Sir Hilary once said he wanted a graduate in every Barbadian household without bothering to explain the reason and how the university was going to manage such an undertaking to get the best manpower results. Many of Cave Hill’s graduates are now unemployed and sadly unemployable because Sir. Hilary “s occupation with being the “King of the Hill” overshadowed his true purpose at the university as its head.
As the Barbadian economy continues to palpitate, its citizens will discover that at the root of many of its problems is a sophisticated level of political prostitution and yardfowlism.There is also widespread intellectual dishonesty pervading the society. We are convinced its time for Sir Hilary to be removed from his current position at the UWI Cave Hill.
However we remain steadfast in our position that this current Democratic Labour Party must not inflict fees on poor, mostly , black Barbadian students.
Am I right in thinking Sir Hilary has an unoccupied official house and chauffeur-driven car.
The substantive issue is that there is nothing called free education; it was invented as a political slogan and Barbadians took it literally.
I have suggested, and I say again, that the best model for UWI is the Yale Endowment model of funding.
This should have been negotiated over a three to five year period, with management of the endowment left to professional fund managers.
From that endowment scholarships, research grants and fellowships would be granted.
The university would also work more closely with government and business, and would have a venture capital arm to fund new projects which come out of university research.
The students’ union – the guild – would be funded by the students, and the university’s overall model would be broken down in to: tuition, which will be paid for, accommodation, which would be a separated operational company, and extra curricula activities, which would be paid for by the students.
At present UWI occupies more land space than any British university, other than Oxford and Cambridge. A university does not need a test-quality cricket ground; if young students want to play cricket they should be invited to join an existing team.
UWI does not need a silver service restaurant, that should be outsourced or closed; and the book shop should also be outsourced and improved.
I would like to see UWI working more closely with the community, both in terms of short courses and evening lectures, by visitors and staff.
Staff should also be put on new contracts and those who refuse should be made redundant or forced to retire. The new contracts should include a benchmark of published peer-reviewed material over a three-year period or questions should be asked about competency.
Finally, UWI must decide if it is a teaching university or a research one. It cannot serve two masters. By the way, when was the last time you saw an advertisement for full or part-time staff, yet a number of people I know all tell me they teach at Cave Hill.
UWI needs good professional management.
@ Hal Austin
“I would like to see UWI working more closely with the community, both in terms of short courses and evening lectures, by visitors and staff.”
Could not possibly agree with you more Hal.
@ Robert Ross
Your comment “…the pedestrian and unimaginative plodder in place…” sums up in entirety the state of affairs at the UWI, in the government, in the private sector, and across all of Bulbados!!
I remember, a half century ago, the words of my late grandmother ( i have of late been contemplating on the use of the word “late” to describe souls that have passed eons ago, but to whom we refer as “late”)
That is the plague of old retired men, soon to be cannon fodder, who cannot sleep at night because we fear that when the eyes are closed, THe Harbinger of Death, will come for us. “Thou fool this night thy sould is required of thee”
“Where there is no vision the people perish” she would intone those words at many a church fair where the ingrunt new reverend, recently from Englant, or somewhere else, ( you know how we loves to bring in a new white revrent and put he up in de manse) would, having commandeered the running of the annual church fair, patently under-order the cases of Cokes (not coke) and Frutees from the Barbados Bottling Company pun Roebuck Street Right where ICBL and that place on the corner is.
And then, the same “reverent” would wonder “why de fair end early?” and my grandmother would mumble “becausing de peeples did not have anything to put in dem craw after 4.30 since you ( an incompetent nitwit – my addition not hers) under-ordered libation”
How many times did you get into fights at school Ross?
You used to pick the fights or did the fights pick you?
When you picked fights, like i did, you did not pick the fellows that could beat you and in this regard, you can now understand why your stellar comment of putting “the pedestrian and unimaginative plodder in place” syndrome abounds.
BECAUSE as visionless, impotent leaders, it is not in our interest to choose to surround ourselves with people who are smarter than us since, they will outperform us, and being soooo close to the spotlight that we hog up, THEY, NOT US, will get the glory and possibly the Beamer or Audi, and the monthly salary.
This in the nature of the Bajan man, appoint nitwits, another kind word for waste foops, to the various subordinate positions and, as if by some miracle, WE the ones who appointed them, become brilliant, uncomparable to any in the firmament, becausing we are being compared to lumps of dogshite.
Unfortunately over the course of 40 years, this trait of mediocrity has become entrenched into our society and Bulbados has become dumbed down over the years, until finally, we arrive at a place where the stock that we have to choose from are unfortunately ONLY nuggets of dogshite, shells of men, carefully polished and gleaming by the laurels heaped upon them every year when the Queen brings out her list, I give you one example of many, Sir Dogshite Leroy Trotman and his successor to the Union throne.
A Time For Change
P&C **** BTW de way if de Caroo girl look good ammmm….. all i gots to say is dat as far as i know eve’y knight, en Hilary is a Sir right?, gots to have a horsie tuh ride, emphasis pun RIDE, if you gets my drift… but dat is a lecherous ole man talking, waiting pun 6 o’clock to roll in so i can get de insulin ….. oh i put P&C – Private and Confidential in front us did remark causing i unnerstan dat it mek dis part uh whu i saying only show pun you cuntputer so peeples like BT, Hants, Onions and dem fellows cyan see en peeple private business wud remain private,
Yuh dont piss whey you does sleep….
@Hal
The management of the bookshop is outsourced.
David
What’s the matter with outsourcing? It’s a contemporary concept of the global economy; ask the number of Americans who have been put on the unemployment line because of the new concept?
I say the University of West Indies has done its job, if it provide the student the opportunity to challenge his thinking but more so teach him how to challenge the conventional thinking.
Thanks, David. I was there in October and asked who owned and ran the bookshop and the young lady at the till did not seem to know. But it is bnadly in need of improving, more books from outsie the Caribbean, less drink machiens and food.
@Hal
Last we heard it was run by these people:
http://www.booksourceonline.com
What we cannot deny is that the decision of the government to demand tuition fees has forced a national conversation, all agree free or not this was badly needed for years. Yes it is because of a cash-strapped government but we are here now.
The Bookshop at UWI is operated by the wife of the clown Edmund Hinkson
“Those who oppose the Government say students should not pay.”
I think you are quite disingenuous in stating such. Barbadians do indeed like a freeness but they are quite understanding too. The source of discontent with regards to this burdensome to many issue is the lack of forthrightness by the administration which has left the students and parents underprepared. For the Prime Minister himself in one breath to emphatically declare that students would never be called upon to pay tuition fees and in less than six months after that statement scandalously invoke the memory of Mr Barrow in reversing that decision shows the callousness which has been a hallmark of the decision making by the administration just like the retrenchment exercise and which has resulted in suffering mental and otherwise to many which could have been minimised or avoided had the decision making process been prudent humane.
May I remind bloggers that Sir Hilary is not under scrutiny but those who imposed the fees in the stealth of the night. Do not be side-tracked by debate intended to detract the public from the nightmare which students an parents are now confronted.
We ought not concern ourselves too much with who owns the book store. What we should be more concern about is whether not the books that are being sold there are achieving they intended purpose. We have to be more open- minded as a people and cease and desist from this xenophobic way of looking at the world.
We also need to rid the UWI of the free loaders like the George Belle’s of this world who while under the employ or the UWI and Beckles could be contracted by Arthur and the BLP to concocting a bogus poll paid for by the BLP and paid to George Belle all the while he is being paid by Beckles for services not being performed by Belle and as recently disclosed in Parliament he then also to earned a further nearly $ 80,000.00 of taxpayers monies for doing nothing other than buying him to shut his mouth. So when you see him rubbing shoulders with the BLP it is merely to try to get them back in power so his rape can restart.
It was to be expected that the day would come when tuition fees at UWI would be demanded of its students. However it was expected that that day would come in a context of intense review of the operations of the university to making sure that fees sought would be reasonable, competitive with similar institutions and such that the society could sustain the university’s existence. It would have been reasonable to expect that financial arrangements i.e student loan schemes and scholarships be put in place to ensure that suitable but under resourced students not be prohibited from entry to UWI. It was also expected that some rationalisation of tertiary education and training programmes would have occurred to ensure that the national capacity needs are efficiently produced. I expected that while my personal financial burden with regard to my children’s education and to my own education would increase, a related decrease in my tax liability would also occur. I am paying more taxes (and Minister Jones is proposing even more taxes) and also paying more for my children’s education but yet this may be an exercise in futility if the university collapses due to too low enrollment, unpaid Government debt, university inefficiency and poor management.
It is surprising to see some of those who are generally anti-colonial would agree with those who would suggest a Yale model for the UWI. We have said before that Hal Austin is an idiot and there are no limits to opportunities to show this. The Yale endowment, as are the financial structures of all the five so-called Ivy League Universities in the USA, have their foundations in slavery. Indeed, they built their institutions by persuading plantation owners in the ‘West Indies’ to sent their sons to these top five instead of all the way to England. This collusion served to prolong slavery’s global position and provided funds to build the endowments which Austin so glowingly talks about. It provided the bodies of Africans for use in all types of experiments, whether after death or before. And we could go on and on.
So for any ‘concomitant’ cunt hole to now argue that a supposedly public University that is merely sixty years old is to transplant the economic model of those rooted in the first globalization period – Transatlantic chattel slavery – represents the epitome of ignorance. Even in this, Hal Austin will have the highly misinformed agreeing. Not that we have any brief for Beckles and the cult built around him up there. But we can never defeat this cultism from a position of historical ignorance or incoherence. Our central question is to Beckles himself. We would want to know how is it possible that an historian (economic), of world renown, with a special knowledge of the past could not have foreseen the present economic circumstances far less be the soothsayer, the best minds are supposed to be? We want to know! All this when ‘lesser’ mind were writing and studying these very issues for decades.
Sir Hillariously Feckless.!!
Erudite ,intelligent contributors above,please look into the eyes of the man.
Says it all.
“The eyes are the mirror of the soul”
“A BOUNDAH Sah, an absolute BOUNDAH”
An opportunist!
For he who does “good” that the good may only reflect in self glory,does NO good.
Excellent post Pinp
Excellent thought provoking post at 7.14 am PIngPong, free of bias and personal invective.
This issue is a very emotional one – while it sounds lovely to claim “free” education” & to have a University graduate in every home is it practical or sustainable ?
personally I see nothing wrong with having to pay for a University its a worldwide practice. however i do think the Govt could had gone about it differently, Why not give the first degree free as long as it is completed in the allotted time, any further degrees the student pays for this should stop the present practice of the “forever” student.
As to this “graduate in every household” what is the sense of that when they cannot find suitable jobs upon graduation ? imagine graduating with a degree and then having to take a job has a counter hand selling hardware for $2,000.00/month if you are lucky.
Beckles has been allowed to build his dynasty to satisfy his ego and we are now seeing the results.
@ Ping Pong,
While fighting to correct a wrong don’t lose sight of the prize.Educate your children.
The Ministers already got their education and are set for life.
I believe that people in Barbados who can afford it should pay for University Education.
I also believe that it is important for Barbados government to provide the same opportunity for those who do not have the means to pay
In Canada you pay for University Education but there are usually part time jobs readily available for University students.
In Barbados there are no part time jobs so that is why I suggest Government take the responsibility to educate those who are willing but don’t have the means.
@Tudor
You are correct the subject of education always evokes emotions BUT the issue here is simple, the government is broke and secondly tbe UWI and government are not on the same page. It should be easy for both sides to agree to a strategic approach because the solution requires claboration, it will not happen by accident. Instead of the political vitriol both sides should agree to an audit of how finances have been consumed and proceed on that basis.
Tudor
Paying for one’s education isn’t a worldwide practice because education is free in France and students in the US are able to obtain an education through free government grants.
If someone spit in your soup, which part of the soup is still good to eat?
We say none ,Sir Hilary Beckles is that soup, many posters have posted parts of the problems with this man,
There are and were many good things he may have done , he has lost his way. Sell out of the Nations trust along with his PIMP title ,
Fraud in history and Life it self , He need to answer the Question on Barbados Plantations , then you will see magic , he will disappear
he became a Sir to Keep his mouth SHUT about the Truth of Violet Beckles and Plantation deeds, Flying fish and Slavery he will speak of but what about after slavery? The we will see Beatrice Henry Queen of Barbados.
Tudor, April 3, 2014 at 11:48 AM
“As to this “graduate in every household” what is the sense of that when they cannot find suitable jobs upon graduation ? imagine graduating with a degree and then having to take a job has a counter hand selling hardware for $2,000.00/month if you are lucky.”
Agreed. And well said. The idea of the “graduate in every household” is plain stupid. Apart from the important matter of jobs for graduates, it is a sad but simple fact that most people, by definition, are of approximately average intelligence. To expect every household in every generation to produce at least one child who will flourish on an undergraduate course is idiotic, unless you lower academic standards even further. It’s like trying to dictate that every household in every generation will produce a child who could realistically be entered into a classical pianist competition or a beauty pageant.
It’s not going to happen unless standards at UWI are lowered to the point that a UWI degree is internationally meaningless — the academic equivalent of non-convertible currency.
Barbados needs apprenticeships for those who are clever at some things but not necessarily gifted with the talents that a stringent university education demands.
There is a responsibility to educate our citizens for the global marketplace. To distil this issue in terms of finding work in Barbados is myopic. Forget Sir Hilary, the issue here is greater.
Additionally, a word about economists.
Never studied the “dismal science” myself. My brain was naturally attuned to much harder disciplines.
But those on this blog who call for an end to the training of economists at UWI (and in the case of one particular contributor, calling for much more than that) are simpletons.
When Barbados has to send a delegation to the WTO to negotiate an international agreement on countervailing duties or government procurement or intellectual property rights, who are we going to send? An onion farmer? A vet? A builder of roads? A dentist? A fisherman? Who?
Tudor
As a matter of fact taxpayers in the US who makes under forty- thousand annually, qualifies for free government grants which covers tuition, school fees and books.
David , April 3, 2014 at 12:44 PM
“There is a responsibility to educate our citizens for the global marketplace. To distil this issue in terms of finding work in Barbados is myopic. Forget Sir Hilary, the issue here is greater.”
Exactly my point. Oxbridge and the Ivies and McGill and Salamanca and Bologna and a vast host of others are churning out hundreds of the brightest people in the world EVERY – SINGLE – YEAR.
It will not help Barbados in “the global marketplace” if UWI engages in the lowering of standards necessary to put “a graduate in every household”.
Barbadians attending UWI should continue with their current status
The people in Barbados pay high taxes for the social services
Eliminate the Taxes as PDC has pointed out time and time again that TAXATION IS NOTHING BUT THIEFING——
You cannot tax people high and then ask them to pay for everything too .
What are you doing with the money but thiefing um
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaagga
Ropes a -dope
University fees make perfect sense. It is a matter of basic equity, in any country.
It is not equitable that the tax of a widow in St. Lucy with no graduates in the household should go to pay for the higher education of someone who will take their degree to the market and command a very large salary. Her tax should be spent on the medical care she might need in her later years.
It is not hard to conceive of a mechanism (in fact, such a mechanism is already in place elsewhere) whereby fees are payable but students face no up-front costs.
They get a free ride during their undergraduate years, but when their income passes a certain threshold (an income that they get because they have a job that requires a degree) they have to start paying back.
@ Ana Hildalgo
Your comment at 12:56 no doubt refers to this writer. Though you sought not to make contact with our central argument, we would want to ask a few questions. What has been the usefulness of Barbados attending these so-called meetings anyhow? What is your thinking about the present global depression that the present models were always susceptible to and after five years seem unable to exit? If Barbados is to play this international role and basically achieved little, would it not be better to save the tax payers” money? If modern economic models are so indispensable, as you claim, why have there been growing and unremitting economic disparities, amongst people, nations, regions? Since you are so passionate about economy where are your ideas about the way forward for the world? Is it to be more of a belief that some thing different will happen or some saviour would intervene? These are some of the questions your conservative brain must address for unlike you there are other conservatively minded people you refuse to display your level of ignorance but are addressing these said problems on a daily basis.
Would like to read some discussion about what some think of the matriculation dumbimg down of entry requirements at Cave Hill.
Pachamama, April 3, 2014 at 1:40 PM
“@ Ana Hildalgo
“Your comment at 12:56 no doubt refers to this writer.”
“We would want to ask a few questions.”
You “would”? In what circumstanes?
“What has been the usefulness of Barbados attending these so-called meetings anyhow?”
How do you distinguish a “meeting” from a “so-called meeting”? Does “the list go on”? Or are they meetings “of that ilk”?
“If modern economic models are so indispensable, as you claim,”
Where did I claim that? Quote your source.
“Since you are so passionate about economy”
Where do I evidence my “passion” for “economy”? And did you mean “economics”?
We just don’t have time for the rest, Pachamama. Time is short and life is precious, and nobody should have to make time to re-read doltish sentences several times in an effort to grasp what the writer is trying to say.
Ana Hildalgo
You seemed to have deliberately misrepresented us. You hodge podge representation of our response has nothing to do, at all, with what we actually said. Only a certain kind of mind could have arrived at this.
Pachamama
Specify a bit that misrepresents you.
Right on Ana! It’s time someone pulled Pacha’s head out of his pompous ass!
David, April 3, 2014 at 2:06 PM:
“Would like to read some discussion about what some think of the matriculation dumbimg down of entry requirements at Cave Hill.”
Agreed. Would be good information. The kind of information needed to make informed policy decisions.
Two other bits of information would also be telling.
First, what is the drop-out rate at the Cave Hill campus? That’s to say, what proportion of students are financed by taxpayers for one or two years, and then never graduate? Whatever the number, that is a net loss to taxpayers. Simply put, it is money wasted.
Second, it would be interesting to hear from faculty members at the Cave Hill campus who have also taught undergraduates in any other university (in any discipline), how they rate UWI undergraduates relative to other undergraduates outside the region.
“A graduate in every household” is not a policy. It is, at best, a T-shirt slogan or a car bumper sticker.
David
What’s wrong with matriculation? Here in the US, one is allowed to matriculate from the community – college to a four year university if one meets the criteria of accumulating a specific number of credits. It is the easy way to avoid taking the SAT, the standardized test required for university admission.
I think some of you may want to read these annual reports.
UWI CAVE HILL Reports 2012 – 2013
PAST UWI CAVE HILL Reports
http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/news/reports/default.asp
Let me make something here clear before the BU critics jump all over me: matriculation applies to specific institutions of learning; as far as my understanding goes. But a good SAT score would get you into the university of your choice but this all depends on the addition criteria the institution is looking for.
@JRB
Read that. It’s got a lot of “context” and the usual number of other weasel words. So far I’ve got 11 “enhances” and an amazing 44 “delivers” but only 2 “stakeholders”. When I have time I’ll look for the “robusts” and the “ownerships” and the “speaks to” and all the other signifiers that you are dealing with someone who doesn’t have the slightest clue how to write English.
But it didn’t tell me squat about the drop-out rate at Cave Hill.
And I wonder what that report cost, and who wrote it, and who paid for it.
Question: I wonder if the professors at the University of the West Indies are given the latitude to design the course syllabus? This I believe is an important component in mapping out what the professor want the student to learn and how the professor will help the student learn. It can also determine the quality of education the student is get in.
Is it true (I don’t know; genuine question) that a large proportion of applicants to the Cave Hill campus from within Barbados have to pay to do a foundation course in English or pass an English proficiency test?
How can this possibly be the case?
Do 18 and 19 year-old university applicants in Finland and Sweden and Germany and France have to take proficiency tests in Finnish and Swedish and German and French? Aren’t they supposed to be able to write proficiently in the language of their schools system by the age of about 10?
@JRB
Read that. It’s got a lot of “context” and the usual number of other weasel words. So far I’ve got 11 “enhances” and an amazing 44 “delivers” but only 2 “stakeholders”. When I have time I’ll look for the “robusts” and the “ownerships” and the “speaks to” and all the other signifiers that you are dealing with someone who doesn’t have the slightest clue how to write English.
But it didn’t tell me squat about the drop-out rate at Cave Hill.
And I wonder what that report cost, and who wrote it, and who paid for it.
Ana Hidalgo
In America, kids who are out of high school and on their way to community college, are given a Math as well as an English entry test to determining where they at. Now, if it is found that they’re are below the projected standard, let’ s say in English. They’re then placed in a Developmental English Course to up they standards, before they can move on to the more credited courses.
@Domkey
Why don’t you read with comprehension? The BU comment was for us to discuss the probable dumb down of entry requirements matriculation at Cave Hill.
@Bush Tea
A scan of the UWI Strategic Plan supports the view that the government was not fully embraced as a key partner.
http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/resources/documents/reports/uwi_strategic_plan.pdf
David
It appears as though I have gotten under your skin? And if I did? I sincerely apologize. Brother my power of comprehension isn’t as good as it ought to be. So I ask that you bear with St. Leonard’s boy, as he tries to discourse with Bajan academic excellence that he really hasn’t any business being amongst.
Thanks to Ann for wielding Excalibur.
Now IF Beckes is SO concerned about the poor and underprivileged WHY
(1) did he allow Poverty Law to be dropped where law students provided free legal services to the underprivileged and
(2) doesn’t he set up and otherwise enhance a hardship fund for poor students who will be fee-challenged? Might Sagicor fund that – the ‘Sagicor Fund’?
Fact is that Beckles line has consistently been ‘spend spend’ because only by spending do you generate income.
(I don’t want to cross swords with H Austin yet again but there are a number of aspects of his post above where he betrays a woeful ignorance. IF he challenges me I will happily say how.)
Sorry Ana – ‘Ana’ not ‘Ann’
@ David
Is it not clear that UWI Cave Hill has been converted into a money-making Ponzi scheme that has been built around the idiotic policy of the Barbados government to provide unconditional “free education” to Bajans – no matter the cost, the numbers, or the quality?
Even more idiotic, is that the government essentially allows UWI to manage the whole system…..the student numbers admitted; the time they can stay, the quality of intake….the cost per student….
Wuh if you were Sir Hill, would you not bring in Community College rejects? Dummies, etc,…?
Would you not want a graduate in every household?
….and why would you care that the alumni cannot even compete for local positions against ordinary foreigners…?….far less internationally…?
Bush Tea
Yes – in a small community like this – equal partners. If it could be taken previously that the University would act honourably for the national good that premise withered on the retirement of Sir Keith Hunte.
Earlier I spoke of the mediocrity to be found now in the Faculty of Law.. To this may be added the idiocy of appointments being made of people from overseas to fill posts which might readily be filled by people here on a part-time basis with no additional costs in terms of health care, superannuation and other benefits as in the case of full time staff.
Why, eg, would you want to bring someone here from UK, as in one case, who had never actually held a lecturing (as distinct from a teaching) post and who had never actually taught the subject he was appointed to teach when there are plenty of people here with far greater experience? And Beckles says penury is all the Government’s fault??
Dropping in | April 4, 2014 at 2:51 AM |
Tom Adams correctly deported Ralph Gonzales its time we deport Tennyson Joseph. We are told he is teacher at UWI. Pray tell when does he get time to teach when he spends his days on Brass tacks and writing garbage in the media criticizing the country that hosts him and pays his salary at UWee.
@droppjng in aka waiting
You are a jackass.
Ross……how can anyone expect any better from so called educated people at UWI whose only aspiration is having a pimp title out of buckingham palace, in my view they continue to go around in circles and take the whole damn population along with them for the ride, what i consider beyond criminal is that they continue to take generations of young minds with them on this not so merry go round, that way not one thing changes. As i said on a previous thread, only the weak-minded males and females find themselves in these top positions in society, weak and easily manipulated to keep the dumbing down of the Caribbean people intact.
Dropsy
from
Dropping or Waiting
Is it the case that undergraduate applicants to the Cave Hill campus of UWI have to pay for a foundation course in English, or pass an English proficiency test?
Can a Cave Hill faculty member tell us: what are the benchmarks for a passing grade on the English proficiency test at UWI?
How do those benchmarks rank on any standard PISA scale, relative to the English-language proficiency of undergraduate candidates in the UK or New Zealand or Jamaica or Canada?
I’m really curious about this. Does anyone know of any other serious university in the world (the entire world) at which applicants for bachelor’s degrees are required to take a proficiency test in the language of their school system?
Ana Hidalgo
At the associate – degree level yes but at the bachelor’s level no. Because at the bachelor’s level, one would have already taken the SAT’S or matriculate from the two year community – college, to four year bachelor’s program offered at the university.
Thanks, Dompey. That’s what normally happens in Barbados, is it?
Do Barbadian applicants to bachelor’s degrees at the Cave Hill campus of the Uiniversity of the West Indies have to take a proficiency test in English before they can be admitted to the university?
It’s a very simple question.
@ Ana Hidalgo
Guidelines for Proficiency Test
ALL applicants to the University, unless exempted (see below), are required to take a Proficiency Test in English. The application for the test may be obtained at the same time as the normal application form from the Student Affairs Section at Cave Hill, Mona or St. Augustine, or from Resident Tutors or University Representatives in Non-Campus Countries.
Who is exempted from the Test?
Possession of one of the following will exempt you from taking the test:
Grade 1 in CXC General Proficiency in English A
Grade 1 or 2 in CAPE Communications Studies Examination
Grade A in the Cambridge GCE ‘O’ Level examination
Grade A or B in the Alternative Ordinary (AO) General Paper
Entrants to the Faculty of Law, who already hold a degree or a pass in English Literature at Advanced Level.
Ana Hidalgo
As far as my knowledge goes: the Developmental English Course is done at the two year community college level. I do not know of any university here in the state of Connecticut, which offers a Developmental English Course to assist the freshman with his or her writing skills.
Stupse, anyone familiar with the American university system knows that WRITING forms part of the mandatory Core Curriculum at most american universities including Quinnipiac University, which is suppose to be one of the top ranked schools in Connecticut.
“Quinnipiac’s liberal arts philosophy is embodied by our University curriculum: academic offerings in disciplines ranging from writing to biology to history. To get ready for their course work at Quinnipiac, students practice the fundamentals of good writing in two composition classes, equaling 6 credits. “
Enuff
That is why the SAT’S eliminates the above and below criteria. Or the matriculation from the two year community college, to the four year university. In other words, by the time an applicant applies to the university, he or she should have already met the standard criteria for English proficiency.
Enuff
Quinnipiac University is located in the state of Connecticut where I reside. And the issue isn’t whether or not Quinnipiac University offers a Liberal Arts Program because the leading university in state of Connecticut (UCOnn) also offers a Liberal Arts Program. But try getting into these two universities without taking the SAT’S?
Enuff
With twenty credits in the Liberal Arts and Science Associate Degree Program at a community college. You’re allowed to matriculate to (UConn) University of Connecticut four year bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science Degree Program, geared towards teaching. Bypassing the SAT’S.
Ana Hidalgo
I attended UWI in the 70’s. In those days all students had to pass a course called USE OF ENGLISH. I know of men who passed all their courses in the medicine program who did not get their MBBS degree until they passed USE OF ENGLISH.
The course included logic, argument etc
It was quite fun I thought.
If the University courses are taught in English it makes sense for students to have a good command of the English language.
How else would they understand what a Lecturer is saying and what is written in a text book?
@ Georgie Porgie, allways good to see you blogging.
I am sure you would agree that with all the new fangle teaching methods today reading,writing and arithmetic is still the foundation on which to build an education.
This is interesting.
http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2013/06/23/why_johnny_cant_sign_his_name_cursive_writing_goes_the_way_of_the_quill.html
Thank you GP. It seems that Ana Hidalgo is confusing UWI proficiency test with TOEFL lmao.
@ Dompey
I am merely stating that many american universities require their undergraduates to take a writing course. SATs do not exempt you from the courses, you can however take a test and be exempted. Sounds familiar?
Note at UWI a Grade 1 at CXC is required though grades 2 and 3 are considered passes. Are you trying to tell me that one can pass CXC English but is not proficient in English? What does that tell you about the content and aim of the test? I don’t see how a multiple choice SAT exam proves you are good writing a composition.
Yale is the leading uni in your state by the way.
I am surprised to hear that UWI requires students to pass an English proficiency test. I worked in a large Barbadian Company with a number of highly qualified bajans holding degrees from UWI who knew nothing about the past tense (ed) nor the correct usage of “there, they & their”.
tHANKS HANTS
I FOLLOW YOUR POSTS TOO
Ana Hid
You asked two questions above, one about drop out rates, the other about comparative quality rooted in staff experience.
The second question refers to staff who have teaching experience in other universities. I just wonder how many there are with that kind of experience. Judging by the staff list in Law I would think very few indeed.
My experience of law students profession- wise is that they are no better nor worse than other graduates I meet travelling around. BUT academic standards have fallen everywhere so that’s not saying much. Some would say (as me) that the move to a semester system at UWI spelt the death knell for understanding as distinct from the accumulation of facts. How, eg, can you possibly ‘teach’ and ‘understand’ Jurisprudence in 10 weeks? When will they understand that it’s not a guided tour of what jurists have supposedly said and that reasoning underpins every subject on the curriculum?
Get real Beckles April 2 at 9:32 pm. “Would you also believe that Beckles described the Cabinet as intellectually challenged in a University meeting ?????? Amazing indeed when most of them are graduates of the same UWI.”
Some people graduate with first class honours. Some graduate with a mere pass.
Can anybody tell me how many of this current Cabinet have earned first class honours.
And how many got a bare pass?
@Ana Hidalgo April 3, 2014 at 3:38 PM “First, what is the drop-out rate at the Cave Hill campus? That’s to say, what proportion of students are financed by taxpayers for one or two years, and then never graduate? Whatever the number, that is a net loss to taxpayers. Simply put, it is money wasted.”
Not really you know Ana. This university drop-out (not from UWI) managed to pay $24,000+ in income tax last year, $5,000+ in NIS and an un-calculated amount in VAT.
We must not assume that university drop-out=net loss to taxpayers…money wasted.
I am not defending nor promoting dropping out but didn’t Bill Gates drop out and nobody can claim that he is a net loss to taxpayers. Simply put…money wasted.
And for those who are complaining about the buildings built at Cave Hill…understand that when Hillary is ready to go home he won’t stuff the buildings in his pocket as he walks out the door.
The buildings are ours, and our children’s, and our children’s children paid for (now and in the future) with our our money, our labour.
Enuff
Thanks for your information on Yale. I just love the way in which Ya’ll continue to underestimate as well as insult my intelligence. And for your information: I have visited Yale on numerous occasions, thank you.
“I have been trying to understand why we have reached this point, and have been asking questions of all kinds of people ”
Douglas, surprise that you would asked a question like that. When peolple like you who support a group of politicians that only cares about themselves, while average people are suffering is shameful. You know how we got here, incompetence, lack of vision, dishonest, and seeking their own gains first. Everything that the last administration built up, is being look upon with scorn and envied, and how ever they can find a way to destroy it, they would. UWI is no exception. So when you can support what lacks vision, mediocrity and envied, it says a lot about you as a person. Is this country now in an IMF program and being control by them? WHY, with all the tax increases the revenue collection is never enough? ask yourself those questions, perhaps you and your friends are consuming too much juice? This country is in serious trouble, but I guess when the shit is hitting your fan, people like you will wake up.