UWI Open Campus gives 2nd chance @ earning degree
This was explained during an online video interactive session with members of the media and from the faculty of the university on Friday May 15, 2015 at the UWI Open Campus located in the compound of the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College in Paraquita Bay, Tortola.
During the interactive session which also doubled as a news conference, Dr Luz M. Longsworth was introduced as the new Acting Principal of The UWI Open Campus. She introduced the Campus’ newest online and blended programmes and courses.
Dr Longsworth, a former BVI resident, discussed her vision and the continuity of the major objectives of the campus inside and outside of the Caribbean region.
According to her, the Open Campus was established in 2008 as the forefront of the UWI’s 21st century strategy.
A regenerative decision
She said the decision taken by the Governments in the region and the university leadership to establish the Open Campus was a regenerative one and provides the kind of innovation that the region has been asking for and needs.
Dr Longsworth added that over the last seven years the Open Campus and its staff has worked to harness existing technology to develop high quality programmes to meet the need of the communities, having done the necessary research.
“Ladies and gentleman the mission of the Open Campus is clearly taking UWI to you. While we know that our young high school graduates may benefit from the environment of a physical campus, [we have] created the mechanism for a new population or persons pursuing higher education,” she said.
Dr Longsworth said the average age of students attending the Open Campus is between 35 to 44 and is employed, “thus indicating that we are able to meet a population that hitherto have been unable to attend university given the fact that they had other commitments.”
Quality of degree is assured
She said she is aware that there are lingering doubts in our region about online delivery. “I am here to assure you that all UWI degrees and programmes offered through the open campus are the same rigorous quality assurance process infused into the development and delivery of a programme,” she said.
Further, she said there is a retention rate of over 80 percent of students. Dr Longsworth said as UWI readies itself for the next phase of its globalisation strategy, through further innovation such as the exciting single virtual university, the Open Campus will be an important part for the dissemination of UWI’s vast resource of knowledge and information to the Caribbean people and indeed any people anywhere who are interested in the Caribbean.
On whether UWI has achieved all of its goals with the Open Campus programme, she said that not all of them have been achieved, citing the economic downturn that began around the same time of the Open Campus did in 2008. She said that this has taken its toll and had led to some parts of the programme being postponed.
She said the programme will continue to work to ensure that persons who study through the Open Campus are well equipped to ride the society of poverty and ignorance.
Details on the programmes being offered and other information can be found here:
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