The University of the West Indies (UWI) has made “phenomenal” progress in the last five years says its Vice-Chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles.
Delivering a report card in a State of the University address this morning, Sir Hilary said the UWI “had confronted the need for transformational change, had been reengineered, reenergized, refocused and rebuilt”.
Sir Hilary said upon assuming office in 2015, he was given several directives by the Heads of Caribbean governments: to renovate the reputation of the UWI, to confront its downward financial trajectory, to bring the OECS into its strategic planning and to make stakeholders and alumni proud of the university.
“I am happy to report that we have delivered upon this mandate. The university has been transformed and our reputation regionally and globally has never been higher. The new financial culture is now progressing at a considerable pace and the future of financing looks very bright indeed,” Sir Hilary pointed out.
The Vice-Chancellor said this progress had led to UWI being ranked as the number one university in the greater, wider Caribbean from a field of over 150 universities. UWI, he noted, is also ranked in the top one per cent of the best universities in Latin America and the Caribbean from over 5000 universities, ranked in the top one per cent globally of universities within its own age cohort and was also ranked in the top four per cent of the world’s finest universities in a field of over 26,000 universities.
“This is our phenomenal achievement, this is who we are, this is where we have reached…Our alumni at home and globally have good cause to feel proud of The Pelican; morale has skyrocketed, the management team feels energized, our students are beaming with joy.
“The Times Higher Education informed us that what we have achieved is quite spectacular and that many universities have taken 30 years to achieve what we have achieved in a mere three years. We could not have asked for a greater validation of our leadership and the effort of our team,” Sir Hilary noted.
He said the UWI had made significant contributions in the sectors of health, economics, law, literature and sport.
The Barbadian Vice-Chancellor revelled in the fact that the UWI’s student roll had doubled in the last 20 years, moving from 25,000 students to 50,000 students.
Sir Hilary said he was pleased that the governments of the region had recently met to formulate a new financial model for the UWI.
He maintained that the benefits would be reaped in the coming years, including the lowering of costs for students.
“We are now at the mountaintop of our reputation. We recognize that we are not yet out of the financial woods and all we are doing is corrective action, but we are on the right path and we have the right instruments and we are prepared and ready to resolve these financial challenges.
“And we do all of this because we are committed to the advancement of the Caribbean community in this 21st century. Our region deserves and is entitled to a first-class university, globally active and respected in which we can feel proud,” Sir Hilary said.
“When we begin to see the great benefits of our financial transformation in the next couple of years, already they are coming, but when they begin to gallop as we implement aggressively our plan, what we will see is the rolling of the costs of higher education to our students. What you will see also is that the Governments will be under less pressure to sustain this first-class university…We are looking forward to the future, the future of UWI is great.”
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)
