News Releases

UWI-FDCRC’s 2nd Annual international Study Visit 2012

For Release Upon Receipt - May 4, 2012

St. Augustine


The Family Development & Children’s Research Centre (FDCRC) at The UWI’s St. Augustine Campus, hosted its “2nd Annual International Study Visit” (ISV) from April 11th to 13th 2012 at the Buccoo Integrated Facility, Buccoo, Tobago.

The event, which was themed ‘Learning through Nature,’ attracted 62 regional participants including Early Years Educators, Child Care Centre Administrators and Early Childhood Teachers from Mexico, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

Participants learnt how to use nature to support curricular goals; identify children and adult roles in outdoor learning environments; to design an Early Years curriculum that emphasizes multiple intelligences and addresses students with disabilities (both physical and mental); as well as to promote preservation, protection and restoration of natural environments and understand the essentials, ethics and principles of Permaculture. At the end of the visit, they were encouraged to join the UWI-FDCRC’s Caribbean Research Collaborative, an educator research community, in order to continue early years’ research in the region.

Attendees included Claudette Austin of School of Education in Guyana; Presella Maria Young-A-Fat and Roline Francoise Bottse, teachers from the Ministry of Education in Suriname; Orville London, Chief Secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly; Whitney Alfred, Secretary of Tobago Division of Education, Youth Affairs and Sport and Dr. Verleen Bobb-Lewis, Coordinator, School Supervision, Tobago. Representing The UWI were Dr. Sabeerah Abdul-Majid, Coordinator of Bachelor of Education and ECCE at School of Education and Professor Funso Aiyejina, Dean of Humanities and Education and Professor of Literatures in English and African & Asian Studies.

The ISV was sponsored by the Ministry of Education, The University of the West Indies, UNICEF and the Tobago House of Assembly.

To see photos of the event please click here http://www.flickr.com/photos/theuwi/sets/72157629949802437/

For the latest UWI News, click http://sta.uwi.edu/news.

About UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with over 50 physical site locations across the region, serving over 20 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Pure & Applied Sciences, Science and Agriculture, and Social Sciences.

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

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