Opinion
- Editorial
Selwyn Ryan:
The Caribbean in the age of modernity
Mustapha
Abdul Hamid, Minister of Science and Technology,
recently claimed that "universities in the
Caribbean, including the two in Trinidad and Tobago,
were producing graduates who are not immediately
relevant to the region's economic development."
Hamid also observed that there was a growing problem
of unemployed graduates and suggested that this
was largely due to the mismatch which existed between
the type of graduate which was being produced and
the type that the economy needed. As he complained,
"if we have a need for engineers and we are
producing a large number of sociologists, then we
have to ask what we are doing with the sociologists."
This
is a legitimate question, one that is by no means
new or unique to Trinidad and Tobago. The question
of the relevance to the economy of what was taught
at UWI was forcibly put on the agenda for public
debate in 1977 by the PNM government in a White
Paper on Higher Education. The White Paper wondered,
inter-alia, "what impact was the UWI academic
community, numbering some 850, having on the social
and economic development of the country." The
then Prime Minister was clearly dissatisfied. Williams
had signalled as much in September 1975 when he
announced a new programme for education in Trinidad
and Tobago which would reflect the new circumstances
facing the country in the wake of the OPEC phenomenon.
Williams
observed that the original educational plan was
formulated when Trinidad and Tobago was a relatively
poor developing country. The plan assumed that the
country's economic development would be based on
assembly type light industry, and would be "neither
dramatic nor revolutionary." That reality had
since changed. Trinidad and Tobago was on the threshold
of achieving critical mass in the area of high-level
technology and large-scale industrial development
based on oil and petro-chemicals. The educational
plan had to recognise this with urgency.
Fundamental
restructuring at the tertiary level was however
deemed problematic since UWI was a regional university
which had to account to 14 governments with differing
needs. The processes of change were cumbersome and
time-consuming. Williams' answer to the problem
was radical decentralisation of decision-making
within the UWI system and the creation of a national
institute of higher education which would manage
the country's human resources in the areas of scientific
and technological research (NIHERST).
Under the proposed decentralisation arrangement,
any government would be free to establish and fund
a national programme without having to seek approval
of central university authorities. The White Paper
warned that if the proposed decentralisation was
not given effect soon, "a complete breakaway
of one of the units [was] inevitable as had occurred
in the case of Guyana."
Notwithstanding
the proposals to change the structure of decision-making
at UWI and the emphasis of what was taught and researched
there, it was assumed that at some point in time
a second university would be established which the
government would control. In a sense, then, the
University of Trinidad and Tobago is in concept
at least 30 years old.
Given
the type of intellectual he was, Williams was not
thinking of establishing a developmental university,
narrowly conceived. In an address entitled "The
University in the Caribbean in the Late Twentieth
Century," he argued the case for greater emphasis
on Caribbean Studies. In the absence of such an
emphasis, Caribbean universities would be "mere
excrescences" on the budgets of Caribbean states.
Williams felt that the basis existed for a serious
attempt to mount a multi-lingual programme of Caribbean
Studies which would emphasise, inter alia, the questions
of race, gender, religion, leisure, and economics
which all students would be required to do as part
of their university programme.
Williams
singled out the works of Lamming, Naipaul, Selvon,
Salkey, Mittelholzer, McKay and CLR James "with
his superlative book on cricket." In the non-Anglophone
Caribbean, he singled out the Martiniquan, Aimé
Césaire, whose works in the fields of history
and politics "constitute him one of the greatest
literary figures that the Caribbean has ever produced."
Nicholas Guillen and Fernando Ortiz of Cuba, Jean
Price Mars and Jacques Romain of Haiti, and Luis
Pales Matos of Puerto Rico also came in for honourable
mention.
Williams
did not agree with the view of Ché Guerara
that "African history did not exist,"
and that "there was no purpose to black people
studying African history," and that "they
instead needed to study Marxist-Leninism."
One however needed to avoid the parochial extremes
which had befallen black studies in the United States
which deemed Shakespeare, the piano and the violin
irrelevant. Caribbean universities, he argued, had
a critical role to play in making an enduring contribution
to university education the world over.
Mr Hamid's complaint suggests that the Government
believes that whatever else UWI might have achieved
over the past 30 years, it was still a prisoner
of its origins and still had too heavy an emphasis
on the arts, humanities, and the social and natural
sciences. One also hears persistent complaints from
the private sector that UWI is not producing work-ready
engineering graduates, particularly in the field
of energy. Thus the need to recruit professionals
from abroad to meet the demand for skilled labour,
competition for which is inflating the price which
firms have to pay to retain staff. Some would also
argue that thanks to the government's bounty, the
university is indiscriminately producing too many
illiterates in almost every field.
Some
of these issues will no doubt be addressed at the
Caribbean Studies Association Conference which meets
at the Crowne Plaza this coming week. The theme
of the conference is the "Caribbean in the
Age of Modernity: The Role of the Academy in Responding
to Challenges in the Region."
Selwyn
Ryan is
as Op-Ed contrinbutor in the Trinidad Express.
Petroleumworld
not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
Note: This commentary was published by Trinidad
Express, on May 28, 2006. Petroleumworld reprint
this article in the interest of our readers.
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