 I am always pleased to see so many persons beside the graduands at these ceremonies as it is a welcome indication of interest in the University and the manner in which we mark and celebrate the progress, especially of the young people entrusted to our care. All graduations are special to us even though they occur annually. They are times of reflection and congratulation on achievement. There are sometimes moments of sweet sadness as friendships that have been fashioned and nurtured over the years seem to be coming to an end. But I can assure you, young graduands, that the friendships formed at the University are among the most durable you will ever make.
But this year is special. This is the fiftieth year of the independence of Trinidad and Tobago and it also represents 50 years since we ceased being the University College of the West Indies, a College of London University and became the independent University of the West Indies. This Campus, which a year ago celebrated its own jubilee, has marked the anniversary of the Independence of Trinidad and Tobago in many ways. I was taken by the tree-planting ceremony with its symbolism of growth and continuity. The Alma Jordan Library mounted an impressive display entitled “Forging the Nation’s Identity: Trinidad and Tobago in 1962.” COTE, the annual economics conference, focused on the theme “50 years of Managing for Development in an Ever Changing Economic Environment: Lessons learnt and the way forward,” and these are only a few of the events which have signalled our commitment to accompanying this country and helping it to realize its development objectives.
My own reflection on these two anniversaries takes me back to some of the events that marked the birth of these two entities and to ponder on how their paths are intertwined.
Dr Eric Williams, as the first Prime Minister of the newly independent country, spoke to the nation on the first day of independence and charged the citizens to see that the small new nation played its part in international affairs and insisted that their first responsibility was the promotion and protection of their democracy which meant more than just the right to vote. He called on them to live up to the slogan “Discipline, Production and Tolerance.” He could well have been formulating a slogan for the new University as these are characteristics that should embrace what ought to be part of the academic credo – discipline of thought and practice, production of new knowledge and the tolerance of disparate views.
Dr Williams also spoke at the first graduation ceremony of our new University and his words have echoed with me ever since I heard them. I quote him:
“Your first responsibility is to your alma mater. Your University came on the scene too late. In conception it was too narrow. It was too rapidly overtaken by the political evolution in the area it served. It grew too slowly. Its period of tutelage lasted too long, but that chequered career, ladies and gentlemen is now behind us”.
He returned to theme of democracy and said:
“…the goal of the university in this world in which we live should be a university symbolic of the democratic freedoms in the entire Caribbean area.”
As I examine the progress and development of our University, of its deliberate efforts to be inclusive, open to and responsive to the several critical comments it receives, internally and externally, I wish to believe that we are striving to be symbolic of Caribbean democratic freedoms.
Dr Williams obviously could not have imagined the changes that would take place in the past 50 years and how the forces of globalization would sometimes nip away at the democracy he prized and how those forces would force small countries to examine carefully their traditional factors of production. In spite of the presence of natural resources, or perhaps because of them, there would be increasing dependence on knowledge workers for the kind of production he might have welcomed. This knowledge economy will require much more attention to those products which are the quintessential stock in trade of our University. I refer to the established ladder of data, information and knowledge – all the output of research.
Thus, I was enormously pleased to read a presentation given by our Principal, Professor Clement Sankat, to the 5th Geological Conference of the Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago (GSTT) entitled “Towards a R&D Culture in Trinidad and Tobago.” He emphasized what is clearly an important issue for Trinidad and Tobago in its next 50 years in that it will have to harness the research of our Universities and take advantage of the innovations that derive from them. I referred to this topic at Cave Hill and pointed out that the University, business and government can and must be intertwined and closely engaged to represent a triple helix of innovation. The possibility of this occurring here is enhanced by the creation of the R&D Impact Fund which I hope will deliberately and intentionally involve the business sector as an active and equal partner. The fund has been established to support research in six areas: climate change and environmental issues; crime, violence and citizen security; economic diversification and sector competitiveness; finance and entrepreneurship; public health and finally technology and society.
There can be innovation in all of these areas, and because innovation is always a product of entrepreneurship, I would propose that it should be possible to find entrepreneurial activity in each of the six areas. There is growing realization in the developed world that the Universities, especially the research Universities such as we aspire to be, must become entrepreneurial institutions or rather institutions that stimulate and value entrepreneurship. According to the management guru, Peter Drucker, innovation is the specific function of entrepreneurship. The issue is how entrepreneurs create new value from existing resources or create new resources. This will become easier as the information revolution puts the best of it at the disposal of vast numbers of people through the internet and information access becomes more and more democratized. It is said that the English language Wikipedia has four million articles, 2.5 billion words and is 50 times the size of the largest encyclopaedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Part of the problem we face in universities is the belief that entrepreneurship relates only to the commercialization of knowledge and somehow this is contrary to the selfless pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. This thinking smacks of the ideas of Cardinal Newman and is not appropriate for the modern academy. Entrepreneurship can be found in all parts of academia and is complementary to the critical thinking that is or should be our norm. Thus I was pleased to learn that Principal Sankat organized for the first time this year an “entrepreneurship boot-camp” in which persons from various disciplines were introduced to the need for this way of thinking about change. I wish to thank the National Entrepreneurship Development Co. Ltd. (NEDCO) for supporting this development and hope it becomes a regular feature of Campus life. I also noted the UWI/WIPO Seminar on the management of intellectual property. I hope this kind of thinking will so permeate the University that every student will know the elements of a business plan before graduating.
There is no shortage of new discoveries in our University and no shortage of possibilities for entrepreneurship and innovation. I wonder how many of you know the story of research on peppers – yes, peppers, done here. I learnt from an article in UWI Today the excellent campus magazine, entitled “Two Trini peppers battle for hottest title.” The pepper called the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper captured the title of the hottest pepper in the world in 2011. But a few months ago the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper set a Guinness World record for hotness. It was about seven times hotter than the average chilli pepper. So Trinidad and Tobago has not only the world’s champion javelin thrower, it also has the world’s hottest pepper! It is research done here that has traced the origins of these strains of peppers and is pointing towards developing high-yielding disease-resistant varieties that can affect the world market, which 10 years ago was worth about US$1.76 billion. It will need the other two strands of the helix – business and government – to ensure that this new knowledge does generate the kind of economic value proposition that benefits the Trinidadian pepper growers.
I was also pleased to learn that one of this campus’ outstanding Units, the Cocoa Research Unit, is celebrating its 50th anniversary, although its legacy goes back to 1930 as the Cocoa Research Scheme and it has supported cocoa not only in this country, but globally as well. It is the custodian of the International Cocoa Genebank, the largest and most diverse collection of cocoa in the world. This collection consists of over 2,400 varieties of cocoa and the germplasm and information regarding the varieties are shared with the world’s cocoa producing countries. It supports local, regional and international training and research. I am told that Trinidadian chocolate from local cocoa is among the finest in the world.
Research and innovation are the stock in trade of universities and other institutions of higher education and there is frequent debate as to the attitude of The University of the West Indies to the development of other institutions of higher education in the region. I have stated often that UWI welcomes the growth of higher education in the Caribbean – especially indigenous institutions. UWI cannot and must not try to provide all the trained persons needed. I was pleased to see our Vice-Chancellor proposing a profound analysis of tertiary education in the region with a view to rationalizing the varied offerings. In this context I have two main concerns. First, I look to the day when there will be in fact a functioning Caribbean system for accreditation of all such institutions.
The second concern is with what is called academic drift, which refers to the tendency to change the focus of institutions particularly concerned with technical and vocational training to becoming institutions that embrace the full range of academic disciplines. I believe that differentiated educational systems can provide for students with different and varied skill sets and aptitudes and offer them a successful life. A Brazilian professor commented to me recently with special reference to his country, of course, that academic diversity is critical for all societies. It offers different alternatives for entry into higher education and indeed, favours social mobility. I sincerely hope that our countries resolutely resist the temptation to create and sustain one single category of higher education, but instead pursue the more functional and nationally appropriate diversified system. This is to the benefit of the country and the young people it incorporates into its trained workforce.
An impressive number of young persons are leaving us for this workforce. There are 3,643 graduates this year, with one-third coming from the Social Sciences. There are 2,710 with first degrees and 933 with higher degrees; 168 of the first degrees are graduating with first class honours and 13 with distinction, while 617 of the higher degrees have achieved distinctions. We should congratulate them warmly on this achievement. I think it is impressive that over the past 10 years this campus has graduated 23,560 students with first degrees. I think our faculty should be congratulated for this. The total enrolment at this campus stands at about 18,000 and these come from 16 Caricom countries and there are 36 other nationalities represented on campus, but nationals of Trinidad and Tobago account for 92% of the students here. I am pleased to note that as in other years, UWI is the preferred place of study for the scholarship winners from Trinidad and Tobago. This year, of the 372 government scholarship winners, 64 % are registered at St Augustine.
I am grateful to those institutions, both domestic and international which have made grants to the campus this year. The largest partner has been the European Union-ACP Caribbean with grants to the Faculty of Science and Agriculture totalling just under one million Euros.
You will be pleased to know that work is proceeding apace on the new South Campus in Penal/Debe and the projected completion date is February 2014. The new Teaching and Learning Complex is scheduled for occupation early next year. Several of our current or former staff received national honours in 2012, these included Dr Hamid Ghany, former Dean of Social Science, retired Professors Selwyn Ryan and John la Guerre who received the Chaconia Medal (Gold). It was gratifying to see so many of our staff receiving the NIHERST Awards for Science and Technology and I wish to congratulate them on receiving this recognition for their contribution in their respective fields.
Let me now congratulate you young graduands and make a request I make every year to you. I do not wish to put it too strongly, but you have an irrevocable responsibility to this University. There are some who would wish to deny it, but contribution of the people of the Caribbean and specifically those of this country to your education to date is a fact of which you must be cognizant. The principal return I ask of you is that you be good ambassadors for the institution and join those of your alumni who continue to make us proud and certainly make me proud to say that I am a graduate of this institution. Please get to know your alumni organization and please continue to show interest in what is done here.
I also wish to thank your parents and loved ones who join with you here in the celebration of this passage. I hope they are pleased with you and share with us of the administration some of the pride we feel at seeing another group of young men and women take up the challenges of a new kind of life. We like to think that they are much better equipped because of the tools they have acquired here. |
