SUNDAY 16 DECEMBER, 2018 – UWI TODAY
3
70
th
ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE
MEMORIES – ISSUE ARCHIVE FEBRUARY 2018
The granting of a new Royal Charter
converting us from a
University College, teaching for degrees, marks the completion
of our period of apprenticeship. It recognizes that excellent
foundations have been laid over the past fourteen years. The
College has achieved a reputation for high academic standards,
and can now go forward in confidence on its own.
We must forever be grateful to the University of London
for the part it has played in helping to make this reputation. The
University of London did more than just set examination papers
and mark the results. It helped us to recruit staff and every year
sent some of its own Professors to visit us. It also advised over a
wider range of problems. The apprentice system is valuable, and
we profited greatly by it.
The University of London accommodated us by modifying
its syllabuses to suit local requirements. This is more successful
in some departments than in others. For example, Physics is the
same wherever you study it, so are the Classics, Mathematics or
French. Other subjects are difficult to adapt, whether because the
subject matter is different or because the purpose of the training is
different. Britain is an industrial, urbanized, racially homogenous
community, with small closely knit families while the West Indies
is agricultural, rural and racially mixed, with a unique family
system. No amount of modification could produce a social science
syllabus which fitted both Britain and the West Indies. Or if you
takeMedicine, the Londonmedical degree includes neither Public
Health nor Psychiatry, since in Britain both these fields are left to
specialists. But in the West Indies we train a doctor who goes out
into the country for his first job, and may find himself doing both
Public Health work and Psychiatry, so we need these subjects in
our medical training. Having the right to devise our own syllabuses
will make only marginal difference to some subjects such as
Engineering, or Chemistry, but it will be quite significant in the
biological and the social sciences.
It will also make quite a difference in the Final Honours
year. Honours students are supposed to come up to the frontier
of knowledge in some part of their subject; to be familiar with the
latest researches, and to see how the subject is advanced. Here
the research which the teachers are doing spills over into their
teaching. Since different teachers are doing different researches,
you cannot regulate this be having a standard syllabus. Each Final
Honours teacher must decide what he is going to teach and frame
his examinations accordingly. To the students this is the most
exciting part of their work, because here they see their subject
actually being made. Our new freedom will therefore virtually
add a new dimension to the teaching of our Final Honours classes.
The quality of the University will also be upgraded in another
way, namely, that we shall now be able to have a large body of
postgraduate students. As an external College of London, the
University College could register a student for a Master’s or a
Doctor’s degree only if he already had a Bachelor’s degree of the
University of London. If a graduate of Oxford or Manchester or
Harvard presented himself, we couldn’t take him. Now, most
universities build up their graduate schools by taking students
from other universities. You send your own students to another
university for postgraduate work, and take in postgraduate students
from elsewhere. Today there are more than 4,000 West Indians
taking Bachelor’s degrees in universities overseas. The sensible
place for them to do their postgraduate work is here, where
researches of special West Indian relevance are going on. We plan
to have two to three hundred graduate students immediately – that
is out next big step forward. It will make a big difference to us
academically, since the academic core of a good university is its
postgraduate teaching and research. And it will also make a big
difference to the general life of our students to have a large body
of mature postgraduates around. This is much the most important
effect of getting a new charter, andmuch themost important reason
we needed to get a new charter as soon as possible.
THE UNIVERSITY
From what I have said you may correctly surmise that the
standards of the College are more likely to rise than to fall, as a
consequence of our independence. Our intention is to hold them
constant, at the level at which they have now been stabilised by
the University of London. We have to keep at this level for several
reasons. Firstly we want to attract the best students born in the
West Indies, and they won’t come unless we offer a first class
education. Secondly, we want our best students to go on to other
universities for postgraduate training, and other universities
will not take them unless we keep up our standards.
Thirdly, we have an obligation to the West Indies to
do first class research into West Indian problems of
all kinds, social, medical, engineering, linguistic,
agricultural, and so on. Research and teaching are
intimately linked both ways. You don’t get first
class teaching staff unless you are doing first class
research, and if you are doing first class research the
standards of teaching will be high. Given the amount
of money that is pouring into this University from
research foundations for research of all kinds, there
is muchmore danger that our standards, may be too
high than they may be too low.
The way universities maintain common
standards is too have external examiners from
other universities. Examination papers are drafted
by the teaching staff, and are then sent to teachers
in other universities for approval. The examination
scripts are marked in the university, and then are sent
to the external examiners to be marked again, and the
external examiners have the last word. This is how
we have worked with London. Our new charter
provides that we must continue to have
external examiners, and the Senate has
already decided that we will not reduce
the number of external examiners.
The cost of all these examiners
is very high, but we think it is
money well spent.
Our new Charter does
not merely recognize that
excellent foundations have
been laid; it also challenges
us to erect an excellent
s t r u c t u r e on t h e s e
foundations. We eagerly
accept this challenge.
This was taken
from the university
publication, “Pelican
Annual” of 1962
The lifeandworkof SirW. Arthur Lewis
was celebratedbyTheUWI on January 23,
2018. Sir Arthur Lewis Day was celebrated with a Symposium and a lecture by the
Vice-Chancellor of DurhamUniversity, Professor Stuart Corbridge, on“SirW. Arthur
Lewis and the Possibility of Development.” Sir William Arthur Lewis (1915–1991),
was known for his work as an economist and as a Nobel Prize winner (1979). He
also served as the Principal of the University College of theWest Indies (UCWI) and
was the first Vice-Chancellor of The UWI (1959–1963).
Statement by
Dr. Arthur Lewis
, Vice-Chancellor
Press Conference, April 25, 1962
