SUNDAY 11 JUNE, 2017 – UWI TODAY
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capable of living off the land as individuals or small groups
or, as situations dictate, to build and maintain resilient
communities that, over time, would recover and grow into
well-established societies. Whatever the circumstances,
they would understand and respect the ecology and be
effectively resourceful in protecting it. In the best of times,
they would have crafted a society that is virtually free of
the current ills, such as crime and discrimination of all
sorts. Economic prosperity, assuming an economic system
of the sort that exists at present, would be buoyed by a
robust structure that is supported by an extremely healthy
network of innovation-driven, export-oriented small and
medium enterprises. We would have achieved a sustainable
existence.
This futurescape that includes a buoyant self-sustaining
economy leads me to conclude with a mention of Dr.
Anthony Sabga, whose memorial service was held on June
3. In many ways, Dr. Sabga represented the kind of citizen
we would like to build. Significantly, just think of the innate
qualities that would give a young man the confidence to
leave his ancestral home half a world away, take up residence
in a foreign land and start a business from scratch. Think
of the vision and drive that empowered him to move that
business from vending clothes on a house-to-house basis
and ultimately leading it all the way to the success we
know as ANSA McAL today. This is the kind of drive,
determination, know-how and confidence that we need
in our young people. We need, in Trinidad and Tobago
alone, by my very informal estimate, 10 to 20 thousand
export earning SMEs – a virtual swarm – driven by the
likes of Dr. Sabga.
What a legacy that would be!
PROFESSOR BRIAN COPELAND
Campus Principal
EDITORIAL TEAM
CAMPUS PRINCIPAL
Professor Brian Copeland
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS
Dr Dawn-Marie De Four-Gill
EDITOR
Vaneisa Baksh • email:
CONTACT US
The UWI Marketing and Communications Office
Tel: (868) 662-2002, exts. 82013 / 83997 or email:
failures and rebuilding Caribbean societies so that their
descendants have a better chance for survival and growth.
AtThe UWI, we have taken on the challenge of utilising
our resources to help younger generations learn how to
survive in the new dynamically changing world. Indeed,
the vision that we have formulated, underscores the view
that survival is by far the most important objective for
any education system. We believe that it is of the utmost
importance that our citizens must be educated and trained
tomeet and beat every challenge that nature or humankind
throws their way.
We see basic survival as a must for all. This is all the
more significant given the potentially disastrous effects of
climate change or the increasing earthquake activities on
our extremely vulnerable island states. Not many of the
populace have the wherewithal to survive if cut off from
the mainstream that provides the societal networking and
the life-supporting supply of resources.
We also see the need to expand the current education-
for-jobs paradigm to one that nurtures creativity and
innovation and equips citizens for survival in current
and future societies. This will also create the best possible
potential for that survival. In this regard, our national and
regional education systems should target the creation of a
robust culture of innovation that endows citizens with the
ability to spot and exploit commercial opportunities and
to derive novel, ingenious and workable solutions to our
economic, societal and ecological challenges. On its own,
this is an enduring legacy that we should bequeath to future
citizens, a legacy that completely obliterates the debilitating
cultural impact of slavery and indentureship. However, it
is the manifestation of this new-found characteristic that
will determine the ultimate survival and growth of our
region as a whole.
At this juncture, we could only imagine what the
region would be like when populated by citizens who
are confident in themselves and their ability to treat with
life’s challenges. In the face of natural disasters or almost
apocalyptic societal collapse, those citizens would be very
When The UWI
St. Augustine
officially opened its classrooms
to students in 1960, it was in an
environment teeming with the
sound and fury of independence
and freedom from colonialism.
The Federation attempt failed
soon enough, but the region was
focused on taking its affairs into
its own hands. UWI students
dutifully attended classes, mindful that there was a
great challenge ahead – that of governing and building a
Caribbean that represented Caribbean people and their
ideals.This was a slightly different agenda from that of their
predecessors, students from 1921 onwards of the WIAC,
ICTA and the UCWI, who were our pioneers in forging a
Caribbean culture of learning.
An appropriate conversation with university graduates
of the sixties would likely reveal a level of civic consciousness
that is not so apparent in recent generations. Something
happened to change that. This may just be the perception
of an older generation. However, if there is substance in
the perception, perhaps it is the legacy of an oil-abundant
economy, or the result of a drastically increased accessibility
afforded by GATE, or the impact of an education
system that many claim is not adequately attuned to our
developmental needs. Whatever the cause, a university
education seems to have become devalued. Students are, for
themost part, of the expectation that academic certification
provides automatic access to a rewarding career, and the
idea of giving back has retreated from their consciousness.
Perhaps this is simply one of the symptoms of the feeling
of entitlement that dogs our society, thus robbing it of its
productivity potential, or of the individualism that has
characterized this century.
Of course, this issue has a global context. A 2013 article
in the online publication theguardian.com, responded to
a poll that clearly showed a similar shift in the thinking
of UK youth. It noted that, “A rising generation that finds
college expensive, work hard to come by and buying a
home an impossible dream is responding to its plight,
not by imagining any collective fightback, but by plotting
individual escape.”
Caribbean survival in the stark reality of our regional
circumstance demands much more of our students today
than ever before. Even as we grapple with the economic,
societal and ecological challenges across the region, many
of our graduates are facing hitherto unseen levels of
underemployment, even in the high-demand professions
such as medicine and law. Graduates of the various
programmes at the St. Augustine Campus will leave its
nurturing grounds to enter a fiercely competitive world,
one that is much more responsive to global changes, and
one in which there are no guarantees.
However, the blame cannot be laid at the feet of our
youth for, in no uncertain way, this is the legacy that we
have left them. In many ways, we have failed to do our
best to live up to the post-independence promises that saw
societal growth and development for much longer than the
short sixty years or so of our sovereign existence. We have
bequeathed to them the unfortunate task, one they must
now accept as their responsibility, of understanding our
FROM THE PRINCIPAL
NURTURING OUR NEWWAVE OF STUDENTS
Graduates of the various programmes at the St. Augustine Campus
will leave its nurturing grounds to enter a fiercely competitive world,
one that is much more responsive to global changes, and one in
which there are no guarantees.
