uwi launch address - 31 july 2015
DESCRIPTION
Higher education in the Caribbean, therefore, no longer can be treated as the preserve of a tiny privileged class or of the ruling elite. It functions best when inequality is removed, when access is improved and when an increasing number of persons can be better prepared to be citizens of the 21st century society.Change is essential and inevitable. We must reform our higher educational system to produce graduates who have the knowledge and skills to allow the Region’s industries and businesses to compete globally. We must also be innovative and focus on long-term value creation, not short-term profit-making.TRANSCRIPT
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Higher education and regional transformation.
Address by His Excellency Brigadier David Granger, President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, at the launch of the University of the West Indies South Campus of St. Augustine, Penal-Debe, Trinidad and Tobago, July 31, 2015. Hon. Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Mrs. Kamla Persad-Bissessar;
Hon. Fazal Karim, Minister of Tertiary Education and Training;
Hon. Roodal Moonilal, Minister of Housing and Urban Development;
Sir George Alleyne, Chancellor of the University of the West Indies;
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies; Professor Clement Sankat, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Campus Principal, University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus; Members of the Cabinet of Trinidad and Tobago;
Members of the Diplomatic Corps;
Members of the media;
Distinguished invitees;
Ladies and gentlemen;
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I am here because I am a Caribbean man. I am here because I am a proud
alumnus of the University of the West Indies. I am here because I am the
latest of the 18 Caribbean Heads of Government to have graduated from
this great regional institution.
It is a happy honour for me to be part of this ceremonial topping-off and deed
handover of the South Campus of St. Augustine, University of the West
Indies. This will be a magnificent campus when completed. The students
who will eventually graduate from here will have experienced 21st century
conditions that are suited to academic excellence and cultural enjoyment.
The vision for this campus is admirable. I congratulate the University of the
West Indies for moving forward with this initiative. I commend the
government of Trinidad and Tobago for the gift of the land.
I would like to thank the Vice-Chancellor who invited me to address todays
ceremony. We met during the recent 36th Meeting of the Heads of
Government Conference of the Caribbean Community in Barbados. He was
there to deliver a passionate and persuasive plea to the Heads of Government
to re-engineer education to enable the Region to be more competitive in the
modern world. He was particularly forceful in advocating increased
investment in science and technology in order to foster greater
innovativeness.
Professor Hilary Beckles was justly concerned that the Caribbean could be
left behind unless greater emphasis was placed on the teaching of science
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and technology. I applaud his foresight and insightfulness. I agree with his
assessment that we need to embrace a new paradigm in higher education.
Higher education in the Caribbean, to my mind, is at the center of regional
integration and human development. As a start, however, Caribbean states
and peoples must cooperate with each other, not compete with each other,
in order to achieve our common goals. The Caribbean is a unique
community. Our language, our location, our political culture and our
diversity should be seen as assets, not liabilities.
Higher education, in this context, must help the Caribbean people not merely
to survive but to thrive in this place our fore-parents made their home. We
must be able to look beyond our painful past, our differences, the distances
across the sea and even our current condition. We must develop the capacity
to conceptualise a collective future made possible by a transformative
education system.
Higher education, in general, and UWI specifically has three tasks:
First, to help to build an economy that is more resilient than the one
we inherited from the planters and landlords of the old mercantile
system. We have to build one that can compete with the eagles of the
West and the tigers of the East.
Second, to build more cohesive societies in which the people are
educated to suppress their outdated social and class differences and
pretences. Our societies must eliminate inequalities and eradicate
extreme poverty.
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Third, to build a more inclusive political system where, by and large,
people can be empowered to participate fully in local and national
democratic organs and can feel confident in their elected
representatives.
Higher education in the Caribbean, therefore, no longer can be treated as the
preserve of a tiny privileged class or of the ruling elite. It functions best when
inequality is removed, when access is improved and when an increasing
number of persons can be better prepared to be citizens of the 21st century
society.
Change is essential and inevitable. We must reform our higher educational
system to produce graduates who have the knowledge and skills to allow the
Regions industries and businesses to compete globally. We must also be
innovative and focus on long-term value creation, not short-term profit-
making.
The Anglophone Caribbean is a region of small states. This highly-
Balkanized area, with a population of just around five million, however, has
astonished the world by producing three Nobel Laureates. Some larger states
with populations measured in millions are yet to produce a single Nobel
Laureate.
Caribbean men and women have distinguished themselves on the global
stage. We have produced sons and daughters of eminence and excellence
who are to be found in almost all professions in almost every country of the
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world. These persons are products of a culture of struggle which has
traditionally attached great value to education.
Our fore-parents saw education as the vehicle for self-emancipation,
enhanced self-esteem, social equality, economic well-being and political
representation. They made untold sacrifices to ensure that they secured a
better education for their children than they themselves had. The parents of
my generation could never dream of attending university which, today, their
great grandchildren must be able to take for granted.
The vast majority of the Caribbean people were poor, powerless, illiterate
and woefully subordinate at the time of Emancipation and the start of
immigration over a century and three quarters ago. Formal education was
discouraged for most of our people largely labourers for much of our
colonized history. Dr. Slinger Franciso ORTT, taught us of the dumbing
effects of the colonial education system in his Dan is the Man in the Van.
Higher education then was the preserve of the elite. No longer. Education
was and still is the vehicle to achieve the good life. Our people want a good
life. They deserve a good life. We are blessed with sufficient talent and
resources to ensure a good life for all. We need not be poor; we need not be
ignorant; we need not suffer from debilitating lifestyle diseases; we should
not be victims of violent crime.
My administration in Guyana, a six-party coalition, is committed to the
objective of securing a good life for all. This, I believe, can be achieved by
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removing what I refer to as the four horsemen of the Guyana apocalypse:
crime, disease, ignorance and poverty.
Higher education has a pivotal role in unshackling us from these four
horsemen and in opening opportunities to access the good life. Investments
in education therefore are investments in the good life.
Higher education in the Caribbean must be reconfigured to support greater
innovativeness in architecture, agriculture, culture, manufacturing,
medicine, engineering, the sciences and business. Higher education should
contribute to the competitiveness of our enterprises and make the Caribbean
a zone of prosperity.
The University of the West Indies is now leading the way in expanding and
extending higher educational access. U.W.I., through this campus and
through its Open Campus, is enlarging its footprint, expanding
opportunities and extending its influence throughout the Region.
We share the Vice Chancellors ambition and vision. We can bring all these
elements together under a regional project to develop a world-class
institution in the provision of higher educational services.
This campus is a good augury for social and scientific education in the
Caribbean. This campus, in my eyes, will provide greater access for a greater
number of our people. UWI is leading the charge to change our economy and
society. UWI is moving us closer towards the goal of a good life for everyone.
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May God bless this University.
I thank you.